I was wondering if anyone here has experiences with vehost or its now parent company hostexa?

Will like to get some views about them.

thanks.

OK, I had sent this PM to Chicken a while ago asking for advice, but after that I had decided to put a lid on it, unless somebody here did mention a possible partnership with them.
I feel terrible writing this, but it's the very first time I write something bad about a competitor and I believe you ought to know. BTW, I mention a 'Start Trek site', but I would like to point out that this site is run by very nice people, they're in no way involved in this, other than being clients. So, here goes:


Hello,
I am going through some sort of dilema and I thought you'd be able to help me here.
Here's my story: in September 2001 our company (VoilaWeb, LLC) initiated the acquisition of Vehost.
However, after 5 horrible weeks (their server was constantly down and their clients about to lynch us) we realized that, on top of all our problems, we had been lied to. This company was previously advertising "unlimited everything!" and making promises that WE would continue this line of business. There was misrepresentation as their pages were now showing limited plans and the figures they gave to our accounting dept were showing these very plans.

We had only paid $500 back then, we were supposed to pay the remainder 1 month later.

The last straw was when we realized that many clients with a $60/year plan (these were all annual plans) were reselling or even giving away their resources for free. For instance there was a start trek fans site 'hosting' more than 50 other sites, all for $60/year, unlimited everything. No wonder the server was agonizing.

We then decided to veto the acquisition. In the process, the owner (Wei) said he could not refund the $500 (conveniently we had to pay them through PayPal...sigh...) but we could keep the clients that were hosted on a different server where he had a reseller account;
we thought "oh, well" and notified these clients that we would have to move their accounts; we would be making up for out $500 when their annual plans were to be renewed.
Of course it was hell since WEI was the owner of most of their domains (don't ask me how/why...) and he would lie and pretend that he was transferring them but actually he wouldn't let go.
Then it became apparent that he had moved some of these clients to his own server. When asked he said that they preferred to stay with him (!).
The following months were spent, as a background activity, migrating the remaining clients accounts. We had to adapt to 'unlimited everything' by offering a reasonable amount of bandwidth, etc. and offer them support just like to our regular clients. And they were very DEMANDING clients. Apparently people tend to get demanding when you're promising everything for nothing...

---

[Interlude]

[a voice: 'a few months later...']

Now Vehost has merged with Hostexa.
It's, at last, renewal time for the first of the clients we had moved.
So we wrote to them but no answer. I started fearing the worse and -yes!- a traceroute showed that this client is now hosted by...HOSTEXA!
What a nice rip-off, my a*se is bleeding First the guy gets our money then he makes us dance for a while and his client is hosted for free by us until renewal time, and now...well, a paying customer! welcome back...

I am utterly pissed, but I'm sure by now you'll have guessed that.
And I see that this guy, hostexa owner and Wei's partner, is posting some offers for the other web hosts on WHT.
I really feel like exposing him, of course for two reasons:
1-nobody here should trust this guy
2-I feel like kicking his arse, and this one isn't such a good reason.

----

-Chris.

Oh my god. That's really bad. I thought paypal can negiotiate a refund for you, if you were not delivered the ''goods' as promised.

I signed up with vehost under their $48/yr hosting which promised 15GB bandwidth at time of signing.

Upon merging with HostExa, I was invited to move to a new control panel and had to go thru re-uploading all my files and creating new databases for my sites. The new control panel was a pain to navigation (still is) and won't work in NS6.2 browsers.

Incidentally, I realised that my bandwidth cap is now set at 12GB not the initial promised 15GB and regardless of my emails stating the error, nothing was done.

I did remember seeing a setup email from Wei but after than everything was from a different person.

I supposed my site now has settled on vehost but I'm not satisfied. The move to the new server(control panel) was a pain, my php scripts keep complaining error until I found that disabled open_basedir in their configuration, which just makes my site full of errors. After a frustrating email, they enabled the open_basedir which eliminated most of my errors but not all. Some of my scripts still won't run cross-directories.

Anyway, I keep having problems with them. The server seems stable and relatively fast. Now I just have a disk space limit problem with them. I don't know what they count towards the disk limit allocation, but I didn't think I have even 50MB of files and yet the space usage can goes beyond 100MB on certain days which a warning email is sent to me.

This is limiting the development of my site. I haven't a problem with disk usage with my old server at all and I'm still using the same files (more or less).

I'll advice anyone going for their plan to be more careful and to find out all the details especially on what counts towards their bandwidth and disk usage allocations. Won't want anyone to feel ripped off as I did.

Note : I got 'scolded' once when I complained about my frustration with the server, and their reply was that I was paying a cheap offer of $48/yr while everyone on the server was paying more monthly.

I don't think that how much you pay should determine the kind of customer service I get from them. They may have been prompted with their support email but their contents in the email are normally brief and non-infomative. I could asked 3 questions and got answer for 1, if I'm lucky.

I think they need better customer support.

I signed up with them a month before December. Everything seemed fine until January. Then there was loads of downtime, constant cgi errors. I contacted the support (Im not going to mention his name) he was 15. He didnt even do anything, the only thing he did was play games. If I asked him to fix a problem (there were lots of problems) he would usually ignore me. Also I had 15 subdomains and he DELETED all of them for NO GOOD REASON. Then Wei comes along "Email me if you need help" so I did and he usually replies in 1-2 weeks. Btw, did I mention there was tons of downtime everyday and then he decreases the plans domains and for $50 monthly we could only have 10 domains with a $5 setup fee after. So I needed 2 more domains and was willing to pay $10 setup fee, it took him 9 days to actually send a reply. Overall I lost 13 customers with him. Well anyways heres what I would give them:

Support: 1/5
Uptime: 1/5
Server Performance: 2/5
Price: 1/5 (They lied too much about the features they offered)

Originally posted by Izzy

Price: 1/5 (They lied too much about the features they offered)

Yes, that's what you could read between the lines in my story: Wei is quite a liar.

I don't know anything about his new partner, he may be a honest guy who unknowingly hooked up with a pathological liar and is now wondering what the heck is happening to him. I'll give him benefit of the doubt.

His 'support' guy is a teenager who moved from the status of client to the one of support, but I don't think he's getting any money for his work so that would explain why he may not always feel like trying very hard.

I remember something that startled me way back when. Wei had (has?) this RAQ with RackShack and this is where most of hist clients sites were hosted. I remember asking 'How do you backup your server?' and his reply 'I never did any backup, look, the HD isn't dead yet so I don't think I need to do any backup' :eek:

-Chris.

I don't know anything about his new partner, he may be a honest guy who unknowingly hooked up with a pathological liar and is now wondering what the heck is happening to him. I'll give him benefit of the doubt.

Geez.. Yeah, I supposed I can understand his unwillingness if he isn't paid to provide support.

So in other words, there is almost no support or no good support with vehost or hostexa, whatever.

Yet, they have an award for hosting on hosteva website. That must be a joke right?

I'm actually going to move out my site even though I paid for a year hosting and I've only been there like 2 months. Too much problem, I dont want to start moving when they lose all my files, it'll be too late then.

Since I can't get my money back, I probably will use my account with vehost to store my download files. :mad:

I dont know a lot about the guy on hostexa but he didnt really help much. He deleted my account BEFORE IT EXPIRED like a week before it was going to expire.

Now I have to start my whole site OVER :mad: . I noticed something too the backups never worked.

And one more thing now theyre trying to charge my credit card for the next month. Isnt there something wrong with that
:eek: I sent them 50 emails already telling them that I moved and told the guy at hostexa.

Now Im trying to get in contact with my bank for a refund.

Well anyways hostexa sucks too. The guy there deleted my site 5 days before the expiration and I didnt have a backup because Wei never did fix the backup feature in my control panel.

BTW I think the support guy got paid in free reseller accounts amd Wei shouldve tried to pay him. Wei was getting a lot of money (A lot of it was stolen from other people). And Wei was barely online so there was NO GOOD SUPPORT

Originally posted by Snow White
Yet, they have an award for hosting on hosteva website. That must be a joke right?

Yeah, the 'hostingassured award'...ahah what a joke. This leads me to think that the new guy isn't any more honest than Wei.

HostingAssured is a new seal created by 'findmyhosing'. Don't get me wrong, I really like findmyhosting. It's just that pretending that it's an award is such a joke.

To be allowed to display the HostingAssured pic on your site, all you have to do is go to their website, fill out a form and they send you a URL to your own image. I believe that it can be a nice tool to detect bad hosts, meaning that if they fail to keep their promises they are supposed to LOSE the seal. You are not supposed to WIN it.
BTW, we (hostinggroup.com) have also "won" this award as you can see on our homepage. We are just not lying about it. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Oh yucks. Charging people even when they leave the server and deleting the site before expiry? That's totally unethical!!!

Btw, when I moved from the old control panel at vehost to the new one at hostexa, I was reminded a couple of times to set my payment, which is a paypal subscription type.

it was supposed to be charge next yearly cycle. I am concerned about that it'll deduct that amount from my paypal account when the next billing cycle comes even though I definitely won't be renewing my hosting with them. Also, I paid for my hosting with credit card initially, so if I disabled that paypal subscription, I'm worried that may record my credit card information and charge me. Dealing with a chargeback isn't going to be easy for me. Any advice?

Oh, that brings me to a question ive been wondering. Do servers or hosting companies actually record credit card numbers? I seen many uses a payment gateway, do they release a customer's credit card number to the sellers?

Snow White, I know that 2checkout doesn't release any info besides the client's name. I think that's one among many 'pluses' that 3rd party processing companies offer to the buyer. Now, AFAIK, Vehost was with Revecom, so you should check with somebody who uses them.

Hey, on a side note, since we vetoed the acquisition I've been contacted by several Vehost clients who remember us and asked if they could move their accounts with us (!). I know that two of them signed up and asked after, so I can't say "Well I don't know...", but I'm not feeling too well about this, ethically speaking (yeah well I know, look at what they did to us, but still...).

What would you do if you were me?

-Chris.

I've been contacted by several Vehost clients who remember us and asked if they could move their accounts with us (!).

Ohh, its obvious they aren't too happy with vehost too. And, I haven't heard anyone with a different side of the story (ie, satisfied customers).

If you asked my opinion, I think if you can help these clients feel more satisfied and happy with hosting, I don't see why not. Obviously, its not nice in businesss tactics, but if no one 'saves' these poor clients, who can?

On the other hand, I did something with the subscription yesterday, (I have this 12 month subscription for my billing) and I cancelled that from my paypal. Within 10 mins, the server froze my account. You can guess that I wasn't too happy with that, knowing that I already PAID 1 year in advance for my current hosting.

You won't, by any chance, know if I can issue a chargeback based on unsatisfactory service, would you?

I felt like I am sick and tired of all these nonsense but don't see to be able to do much without losing the bulk of the money I've paid.
That's explains my stand on the vehost clients you were talking about. If i'm one of them, I'll love to be 'rescued'. :bawling:

I agree if you can help any of the old vehost clients please do so.

:D

I guess the first thing I should say is Wei is not my partner.
I wish I could find this guy right now, but he is down under I think.

Wei is pretty much a fraud. The books he provided to me during the stages before the purchase were setup. I am now hosting about 20 some clients that were suppose to be due for payment but in fact had paid. I honored these account and now I am hosting them for free. Snow White your one of them. I think I a managed to help out 50 or so client of Vehost ( Old ) and about 2 dedicated servers.

I was going to cancel the whole purchase/merger part but Wei already updated his website and was going to cancel the server at Rackshack I think. I had no choice but to either walk away and leave everyone without a site or help. That is the main reason why I decided to go ahead and help them out. Some of these people are nice and I could not just set back and let them go without a website. I am just glad I made him give me control of the domain name with my first payment. Wei then vanished and the server went dead.

I helped a few people get a refund via the credit card system. I am reading this forum and now wish I would heard these situation before I started talking with Wei.


Chris - Send me a PM. I am interested in hearing more of this situation. I might be able to help you.

As far as the Host assured award, they assured me that it was an honor to keep this image on my site. If you have a problem with the way I have displayed it on my site you can either address it with me (I doubt I am doing anything wrong) and/or address it with Hosting Assured. Once again you may be trying to put me down because you felt I was in bed with the devilish Wei. ( edited typo )

I normally don't post and feed these posts, but I feel I need to clear this up. I will answer any questions anyone has just email me. I also want to speak with anyone that got burned from him as well.


Derrick

let me get things straight, for the record..

I wasn't aware of my site being hosted on hostexa for free, as far as I was concerned, I paid for my hosting in full and expected the amount of service I'm entitled to as a paying customer.

Of course, given that Derrick is hosting my site for free, I am naturally more sympathic towards the unfortunate chain of events.

Unfortunately, things doesn't help much given that the money I paid didn't go into the right pocket and I felt bad having to ask for support for 'free hosting'.

Just to set things straight, know that my wrath goes to Vehost and Wei, not Hostexa or Derrick.

I will very much want a stable hosting where the plan allows my site to grow and developed. Derrick has asked me if I'll want to stay on at the rate I paid vehost (80/yr) on what he'll normally charge 24.95/mth. However, my site is going near the limit of 100mb and 12GB, and with the money I paid, going into someone's pocket, I don't feel good about demanding support or quality performance for my site anymore.

Which isn't fair to me, afterall I paid for me site. I think it is unfortunate. I'm going to issue a chargeback and see if I can obtain the money that never should have gone into that someone's else pocket.

Originally posted by ventrue21
I was going to cancel the whole purchase/merger part but Wei already updated his website and was going to cancel the server at Rackshack I think. I had no choice but to either walk away and leave everyone without a site or help. That is the main reason why I decided to go ahead and help them out. Some of these people are nice and I could not just set back and let them go without a website. I am just glad I made him give me control of the domain name with my first payment. Wei then vanished and the server went dead.


Derrick, well sorry to read that. What I don't understand, then, is how come you didn't honestly explain this to your ex-Vehost clients? But I must admit I feel quite guilty, since it appears that if I had written about this before, you may had read it and not made any deal with him. Now of course, it's as long as I can believe you; after all, Wei's world is built on deception :(

Originally posted by ventrue21
As far as the Host assured award, Hosting Assured that it was an honor to keep this image on your site told me to it. If you have a problem with the way I have displayed it on my site you can either address it with me (I doubt I am doing anything wrong) and/or address it with Hosting Assured. Once again you may be trying to put me down because you felt I was in bed with the devilish Wei.


You are right about this. I saw how you were advertising your HA seal and I thought "Oh, look, another Wei'ism".
But it's all in my previous post: you're advertising this as a reward, whereas its only meaning is that you promise you'll be a good boy. No irony here, we do the same, only we don't claim it to be a reward ;)

Regards,
-Chris.

Hi,

As the co-owner of FindMyHosting & Hosting Assured I just wanted to add a comment about the Hosting Assured points in the discussion.

Hosting Assured clearly isn't any kind of award. It's a trustmark. Any FindMyHosting host that doesn't list "unlimited" plans can become Hosting Assured and maintain it so long as any complaints reach good faith resolutions. As mentioned in a prior post - you don't win HA, but you can lose it.

HA is designed to be an advocate for the consumer and also a tool for the Host to make a statement about how they will treat customers = a point of differentiation in a competitive market. We now also return HA status in FindMyHosting search results.

How a host presents the HA seal on their site, is up to them, right now we have no rules on that (perhaps we should), but to say it's an award could risk undoing the potential benefit it brings.

Andrew, thanks for clarifying this.

BTW, I really like the look of FindMyHosting; the color scheme was quite a bold idea, but the visual experience is really pleasing.

I don't really feel I am acting as if it is an award. I am just honored to be a part of this process.

Originally posted by ventrue21
I don't really feel I am acting as if it is an award. I am just honored to be a part of this process.

Ventrue, read here: http://forum.hostexa.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?s=3cade610d105ffff;act=ST;f=1;t=4

We just got rated Host Assured!, Hostexa was rated a premier host more... We could not have done it without our customers behind us!

That's an example, and I don't remember where but I think you even used the word "Award". Now I am sure this is just a misunderstanding. But believe me, Wei being in the picture doesn't help :(

quote:
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We just got rated Host Assured!, Hostexa was rated a premier host more...
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We did get "rated" or "approved" host Assured, because there is a chance to be declined then the fact I am means I must have been approved or rated under some system.

quote:
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We could not have done it without our customers behind us!
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Correct, if enough clients complain and provide negative feedback then our status ( approved ) would be removed and we would not be allowed to have the seal on our website.

quote:
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That's an example, and I don't remember where but I think you even used the word "Award". Now I am sure this is just a misunderstanding. But believe me, Wei being in the picture doesn't help
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Finally Wei has nothing to do with Hostexa and its ability to be within the network of approved Hosts.

Remember we are pretty much in the same boat on this one. He took both of us for a pretty good ride.


Based these points I raised I feel it is very clear my actions on my website are within the guidelines of the status Host Assured and I feel I have in now way deceived and/or mislead the status of this said system. You have raised some good point here, but as you can see they do not apply to me.

Derrick, I have to agree with chris. It seems to me as if you've put quite a ludicrous spin on the hosting assured trustmark.