Bliksem Hosting one month review

This is my one month review with Bliksem Hosting. I have to say Bliksem Hosting is really a good web hosting company. I only have good things to say about them. I started with Bliksem Hosting on 2/18/06. I had many questions in which a lady at Bliksem Hosting by the name of Christina who gave me a very detailed report on a few things I needed. As well the tech support is top notch with times around 30 minutes response. Though I am removing my reseller account with them, but not for any bad reasons! I am getting a server as well a semi-dedicated plan with them now.

Prices - They did just raise the prices, but for the service they give I am willing to pay the extra couple of dollars. 10/10

Support - The support is top notch. I have nothing bad to say about the support really. They are fast, very detailed, and friendly. 10/10

Server Speed - I have yet been on a server so fast before. I was able to FTP as well get all my stuff done much faster because of the server I am on. 10/10

Billing - I got my account set up within less an hour. With phone verification added which made me feel safe that they check who is ordering from them. As well I canceled my reseller account with them and it took less then 10 minutes with a friendly reply from Jav with details on how to purchase more stuff from them. 10/10

Over all I give them a 10 out of a 10 for they really are a great business I have worked with. Not only that but I am very happy with the service I have got so far. If you consider anyone for hosting needs I really have to say go with Bliksem Hosting.

If you would like my domain name I can send a mod to it to verify that I am with Bliksem Hosting.

Thank you

Good review, so far so good on how things are running over there! A+ for you :)

Torith,

Thank you for your thorough review! :)
Let us know how the semi-dedicated server turns out.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us! Glad to hear you are happy :)

Thank you for sharing your experience with the WHT community Torith :peace:

I'm very pleased you're happy with our service.

How did I miss this thread days ago? :)

Prices - They did just raise the prices, but for the service they give I am willing to pay the extra couple of dollars. 10/10I think that's a smart move. Proper funding will help them maintain a good reputation. They're still not expensive though.

If you would like my domain name I can send a mod to it to verify that I am with Bliksem Hosting.Since you mentioned it, it can't hurt to do so. It'll add value to the review. You can use http://www.webhostingtalk.com/report.php?p=3734697

I sent in my domain name. As well I would rather pay higher prices for great service. With many hosts you will see them drop prices and services go down hill (not always but some do). So it is nice that they care about the customers and the business! :peace:


How did I miss this thread days ago? :)

I think that's a smart move. Proper funding will help them maintain a good reputation. They're still not expensive though.

Since you mentioned it, it can't hurt to do so. It'll add value to the review. You can use http://www.webhostingtalk.com/report.php?p=3734697

How did I miss this thread days ago? :)
They call that slacking 'roun here. ;)

The last time I saw someone say that.... they kind of "vanished" I would watch out if I was you :eek2:.

They call that slacking 'roun here. ;)

The last time I saw someone say that.... they kind of "vanished" I would watch out if I was you :eek2:.

Free vacation for calling folks slackers?!
Why didn't I start earlier! :)

I really do need to get away.

Torith's domain has been verified.

Thanks

Matt

They call that slacking 'roun here. ;)Actually, I think that's exactly what it was. It must've been the day when I just didn't feel like browsing forums. Can you believe such a thing can happen? :D

Great review, Torith! I've been with Bliksem for quite awhile now and agree their service is top-notch!

Support - The support is top notch. I have nothing bad to say about the support really. They are fast, very detailed, and friendly. 10/10

I 'm looking to pick a reseller account with them, could you tell about your experience with their support. Is it 24/7 ? Do they man it at night time, sundays , holidays ? Do have 24/7 telephone support ?

I'm told BilkSem is great if you are a "Web Hosting Master" located in the CST.

For Newbies, Site5 or Cartika hosting is advised. Please comment.

Bliksem Hosting one month review

Server Speed - I have yet been on a server so fast before. I was able to FTP as well get all my stuff done much faster because of the server I am on. 10/10



They don't have RAID on their servers

Offsite backups are payable extra

Onsite backup frequency is Weekly!

Is this Good?

They don't have RAID on their servers

Offsite backups are payable extra

Onsite backup frequency is Weekly!

Is this Good?

Just to correct this statement...we run weekly backups free of charge. We do not charge extra for the backups we run on our servers. These backups are stored on both a second drive as well as offsite on another server.

We offer the option to add FTP backup space for an additional charge.

Some users like to run their own backups in addition to the free ones we provide and FTP backup space allows them space on another server that can be restored as well upon request.

Just to correct this statement...we run weekly backups free of charge. We do not charge extra for the backups we run on our servers. These backups are stored on both a second drive as well as offsite on another server.

We offer the option to add FTP backup space for an additional charge.

Some users like to run their own backups in addition to the free ones we provide and FTP backup space allows them space on another server that can be restored as well upon request.

Thank for clearing this. I stand corrected.

Could you tell us what level of support you offer? How many techs. are on the jod concurrently? Is it true 24/7 and do you have nominated account executives for each customer like SiteGround ?

Is BlikSem hosting White Labelled for Reseller ?

marc_zoom,

For faster replies I'd suggest contacting their sales department directly via their website. As I'm certain they don't monitor WHT 24/7 as they do have plenty of things keeping them busy :)

Best of luck to you in your research.

Yes they do have 24/7 support from the ticket area. Which from what I have seen the time it took them to respond to the ticket was around 15 to 30 minutes at night. Now these was simple questions for the most part so I am not sure if more harder questions would take more time. I do not think they have telephone support when I used them they did not.... not sure as of right now. They work sundays and holidays from what I have seen.

Reason why I do not use them any more is I do not need them any more, but I do have to say they are well worth you money... plus some. They always gave great support with much details. I forgot what the one lady name was, but she sure makes Bliksem Hosting a A grade in my book!

I 'm looking to pick a reseller account with them, could you tell about your experience with their support. Is it 24/7 ? Do they man it at night time, sundays , holidays ? Do have 24/7 telephone support ?

Yes it is true 24/7 support and one of the most friendly support I have ever seen. I have never seen any of the staff rude to me or gave me a short "snappy" response. They really take pride in there business.

Thank for clearing this. I stand corrected.

Could you tell us what level of support you offer? How many techs. are on the jod concurrently? Is it true 24/7 and do you have nominated account executives for each customer like SiteGround ?

Yes it is true 24/7 support and one of the most friendly support I have ever seen. I have never seen any of the staff rude to me or gave me a short "snappy" response. They really take pride in there business.


Our experience: Had to cancel after we lost clients

http://www.bliksterhq.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1258#post1258

If their support is as good as the reviewer says, the price is vey very reasonable.

Looks like I may be getting a new webhost soon.

Our experience: Had to cancel after we lost clients

http://www.bliksterhq.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1258#post1258

Evidently you have to register as a member of their forum to read your post so we have no idea what your post was about. Care to let us know?

Evidently you have to register as a member of their forum to read your post so we have no idea what your post was about. Care to let us know?

Catfished,

(1) Approx period: Starting at 22nd May 2006 10:32 PM with Ticket ID: OHM-764698

-We didnot get support for over nine-ten hours.
-Support tickets not answered
-Live Chat was on, But no operator
-Emergency Technical Support Telephone - no one picked up - called up 3 times with intervals.
-Forum threads no one replied

Net Result: Lost clients

After ten hours we were told "NO" on most issues and "If you want this faster you can do it yourself".

(2) Every knows - doing a large website (500meg or more) restore from remote location via a cp restore is practically impossible. (Entire restore would fail if the upload connection breaks once. Thats why you need to ftp it to server and do a local restore. This is what we asked. Plus the backup was from another server not their server.)

(3) Then, our domains on their server showed "Open DNS error" (dnsreport.com). This issue though not critical has been fixed by most reputed providers. We asked them to do the same. They said "This isn't something we will be implementing in the near future. As mentioned, if our techs do implement this a notice will be sent".

(4) Finally - each time a enduser logged into cpanel via http://end-user-domain.com/cpanel he was directed to https://server.hostname.com with a self signed certificate that gave a "Pop up" warning asking user to accept a certificate of "server.hostname". Two clients traced their account with us, to BlikSem, though Google via keyword combinations of the hostname. They cancelled on us.

We asked BlikSem them to change this, said we are willing to pay for additional dediacted IP & SSL. They said "NO". (meaning upgrade to dedicated or vps)



We were on,
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Plan: xR-10 - 20GB/250GB
Domain: xxx***********
Your Account is Hosted on Joie
IP Addresses: 70.84.140.36 | 70.84.140.38 | 70.84.156.65
Access website by IP (Use this until your domain propagates): http://70.84.140.36/~xxxxxx/
Your shared accounts are set to install on this IP as well and are accessible by going to http://70.84.140.36/~USERNAME/

Paid via,
Transaction ID: 11V30136CN540135T
Item Price: $374.92 USD
Total: $374.92 USD
Item/Product Name: BliksemHosting
Item/Product Number: 2871
---------------------------------------------------------------

After all this, we asked Jav, that our peak support needs would be CST night time approx 9PM CST to 7AM CST. What can we expect in terms to support response in future. Ticket was closed and we were told to email Jav or call him. We emailed Jav with the same query. We got no reply.

So we decided to cancel in the 30days money back guaranttee period. They have not refunded as yet, lets see....


Lastly, of this experience we get the feeling we are at fault or have been un-reasonable, though I cannot see where we are at error. But I am ready to apologise publically, of behalf of our company, if the forum feels, Indichosts.net is wrong.

Thanks for taking the time to post it Indichosts.net.

From what I'm reading, you had a terrible experience. It's the first negative post I have read on Bliksem but that doesn't make it any less credible. The best of luck with whoever you go to next.

It would be interesting to see Bliksem reply to this.

Just to clarify what happened here:

There was one ticket that was updated for an account restore. This was a ticket that was already opened and was updated after the initial migration asking us to restore an account for a new client that apparently just signed up with this reseller. Account restores can take up to 24 hours. It's a courtesy and meant to assist you in moving your clientbase over. Although we are happy to assist and migrate a new client for a reseller, it is not a critical request. This was explained to the reseller.

As for the other two tickets that went unanswered for longer than our SLA allows, this is unfortunate.

In two years of service we have never left a ticket unanswered for longer than a few hours and our own SLA guarantees a response within 5 hours or compensation is in order as outlined here:
http://bliksemhosting.com/tech_gty.html

A simple search on any major Webhosting forum or google will attest to the fact that we do provide 24/7 support with an average 30 minute initial response.

Now, we are growing since our reviews have always been so positive, and as such have hired additional tech staff. We had a new tech staff member (Frankie) man the desk on Monday night. Unfortunately, his alerts did not come through. Again, this is unfortunate but the reseller is protected under our Tech Support Guarantee and could have claimed compensation because we answered after our guarantee allows for.

Incidentally, one of the support requests was to change the server configuration on a shared server. This is something that we do not do as per our TOS.

The second ticket was due to not receiving new account emails. The client was told to make sure he whitelists the server's domain. He did not.

Now, while unfortunate that this is the first time in two years that we did not respond as fast as we'd like to, adjustments have been made to assure that it is the only time that this happens.

We now issue SMS pagers using a carrier we know to be reliable. I agree this should have been uniform from the start.

In case of a server down or service down, all of us get alerted so anything critical we would have known about and resolved. But only the person or persons manning the help desk get new ticket alerts.

Nice answer BlikWerk. I guess the story just serves as proof that no one's perfect. :)

For me, the answer shows Bliksem is willing to make improvements in their support, at the first sign of a bump in their support service. They did not wait until several customers complained about support tickets not getting answered.... they went out and implemented changes right away, and I'm sure their customers appreciate that.

Great job Bliksem.... keep up the good work :)

Rob.

I second every positive opinions I read here and on other threads. Bliksem support and billing department are amazing. I'm very pleased having an account with them.

I'm told BilkSem is great if you are a "Web Hosting Master" located in the CST.

For Newbies, Site5 or Cartika hosting is advised. Please comment.

I'm a customer of both BliksemHosting and Site5. What you say is true in a sense.

With Bliksem, you'll have to be aware of what you do as they are generally very strict with implementing the rules (thus, very good uptime). With Site5, they help you out a lot but they have been recently having issues with server performance (that is, poor server performance).

If I'd be hard-pressed to choose though, I'd still go with Bliksem (even though they don't fit my needs).

..... Bliksem support and billing department are amazing.....

We cancelled under 30days Money Back Guaranttee period,

on 23 May 2006 11:39 PM (NTN-991355)

on 24 May 2006 01:39 AM (Cancellation was accepted)

on 16 Jun 2006 01:23 PM (Approved by Jav for Refund)

on 28th Jun 2006 - .....Still waiting for my money.....

Would you call that "Amazing"?

- I think most BlikSem customers are afraid of the consequences, should they tell the truth on public forums like these.

- Nothing else explains this phenomena

Indichosts.net -> Did you pay by credit card? If yes, then it may take a little bit longer. Have you actually tried contacting Bliksem about the issue?

Generally, refunds can take up to 45 days to be processed.

... Did you pay by credit card? If yes, then it may take a little bit longer. Have you actually tried contacting Bliksem about the issue?

Generally, refunds can take up to 45 days to be processed...


Paid via PayPal following details,

Transaction ID: 11V30136CN540135T
Item Price: $374.92 USD
Total: $374.92 USD
Item/Product Name: BliksemHosting
Item/Product Number: 2871

I think most BlikSem customers are afraid of the consequences, should they tell the truth on public forums like these.
What is this some kind of mafia? Stop talking nonsense, this is a public forum where everyone speaks for their experience, and mine was awesome.

Would you mind telling us why you cancelled the account with them?

i have had a shocking experience with them just recently.

Horrific HDD failures (yes data loss)
Support is dismal if you do not live in the US
I find the support staff to be quite rude and condescending
I think they resell another service, as anything remotely technical always seems to take forever to fix.
Some issues with speedwhen i signed up with them, i thought they were too good to be true. I was with them for almost 2 years. Within the past month, they have swiftly declined from tolerable with the HDD failure, to downright horrific to deal with.

If someone is on the verge of being a reseller with them, and are tossing up between them and someone else - id take your money elsewhere.