Hi,

I'm new to the board today, and hope it's okay to ask opinions on a couple hosting companies. . .HostRocket and HostCulture.

Both of these hosts have packages/features that would meet my needs. But, does anyone have any comments, good or bad, about either one? (If you are affiliated with either company, please don't respond. Only bonafide customers, please, as it doesn't do a lot of good to hear how wonderful the service is from the owner or employees!) :uhh: :spiny:

I am interested if they currently host your domain or have in the past, and the experiences you have had. Please list any pros or cons you think I need to know in order to choose one over the other.

Thanks in advance for any advice! :wavey:

~DiamondGal

My website listed in my sig is hosted by host rocket. There up time has been great, the site has only been down twice, however it was an expected downtime, as they moved to a new data center i beleive. They just added another bandwidth provider, and the speed is excellent(it was good before the addition as well). There 'High' point is technical support, i have only sent in a couple trouble tickets, and received a reply in a matter of minutes.

I would recommend them, not to mention they also just upgraded bandwidth limits for each plan!

I used to love being at HR, they have support forums where customers frequent which is a big plus point, and their plans used to be cheaper, and support was pretty good.

However, they became bigger and bigger, and responses to my support tickers were becoming more vague. One question can be answered by different people who have no idea what their colleague had already tried to do, and I ended up asking the same question multiple times, through the same ticket thread.

I was very loyal, I stayed there for over a year, referred at least five other customers to HR.

Please note that I've moved on since March, so what happens now, I have no idea.

In fact am much happier now with my new host because their uptime is better than HR's.

For hostculture, I've never heard anything negative about it. =)

Good luck.

I have been with hostculture for about a month now and they have been great!

I haven't had any problems that required a support ticket to be open, so I can't speak for that. However, the questions on the support forums get answered very quickly.

A link to my site is in my profile. :)

I used to have an account with HostRocket, they were excellent. The only thing I didn't like about them was the number of people on the server I was on (around 750).

U sure about that? We dont have any boxes with nearly that many users... I think there was once actually which may be what youre referring to but it was split off into 2 machines.

-Brendan

Originally posted by Avail
I used to have an account with HostRocket, they were excellent. The only thing I didn't like about them was the number of people on the server I was on (around 750).
So who really cares about how many accounts on the box? I'd be more concerned with the type of accounts etc and the usage. You could be on the same box with 1 account and get totally toasted. :)

I have two accounts with Hostrocket. I have nothing to complain about....uptime is good......no worse than any of my other accounts with other hosts. They seem responsive to trouble tickets.....thought vague at times.
Glenn

Do not go with hostrocket resently they have taken a turn for the worst I hosted 2 sites with them first after my site used 14 gigs of bandwith per a couple of months of traffic actually going down a lil they said I needed to upgrade to semi dedicated I was upset but set fine, anyways my site was down for a week really anoying thought it was just a one time thing.....

4 days ago they email me with the same message about another site. This is an old site which i stoped working on but just keep up for old users and its at 10% of its good day traffic anywyas they email me the same thing again, two tickets been opened for 4 days no, and site is still down. I think they are just trying to rip me off again. This site uses 1 gig per month, while they allow 20

Anyways stay away from them they where real good and I went with them becuase they are reputable, but now i'm sad to say that my site is down and i simply dont know what too do.

Same exact thing with me they where great everything uptime support etc, but now :( well they are plumiting, FAST. I just hope brendon turns the company back around into what it was.

Originally posted by xharine
I used to love being at HR, they have support forums where customers frequent which is a big plus point, and their plans used to be cheaper, and support was pretty good.

However, they became bigger and bigger, and responses to my support tickers were becoming more vague. One question can be answered by different people who have no idea what their colleague had already tried to do, and I ended up asking the same question multiple times, through the same ticket thread.

I was very loyal, I stayed there for over a year, referred at least five other customers to HR.

Please note that I've moved on since March, so what happens now, I have no idea.

In fact am much happier now with my new host because their uptime is better than HR's.

For hostculture, I've never heard anything negative about it. =)

Good luck.

i've heard many great things about hostrocket. I'm even 90% im gunna be using them as my hoster for my site. I'm really impressed with their work. Thats just my two cents..lol

Originally posted by foe
Same exact thing with me they where great everything uptime support etc, but now :( well they are plumiting, FAST. I just hope brendon turns the company back around into what it was.



We are hardly 'plummeting fast' - your sites as causing issues on the servers and we're working on it with you when the people who are around who can help you out can do so. Its something that needs to be worked on between you and our support teams via our support systems (either ticket, phone, etc.) and not on public such as this one. Give us a call, its the easiest way to get things straightened out if you're having a problem.

-Brendan

GETTING BACK ON TOPIC

It seems Hostrocket would be best for you because prices and the excellent support

When I originally posted, I asked that those people not reply because of course it stands to reason that owner/employees are naturally going to speak highly of their business or where they work. I wanted to hear from actual customers that wouldn't be biased.

But, it seems now that I can't get any response at all from HostCulture. :unhappy: If anyone from there is reading this, I have tried to post questions in your Pre-Sales Questions forum as well as sent an e-mail to Aron and have not received any response from either attempt. Maybe the "please don't respond" request was taken a little too far. I only meant that on my initial question here at WHT, but not on your own forum or the e-mail I sent! :eek2:

Anyway, now I am asking, could someone please respond?! :look:

Thanks,
~DiamondGal

I believe www.HostCulture.com is partially owned/run by Jorge Catena who also runs www.downtownhost.com and consistenly gets great reviews for the quality and reliability of his services.
I have sent them a few of our customers who required java servlets and they were very satisfied with the service.

Well im sorry if you disagree with me jsut tell me one thing where my tickets not open for several days with no answer? Also is my site up now, no.

Just called phone support problem fixed in 3 minutes, atleast thats settled anyways, still upset bout the trouble ticket thing, but atleast now they have tell support which is real good.

I apologize for not responding to your email, up until last night or this morning I had been having problems with emails being sent and received, however that has been worked out know (as far as I can tell).

Right now HC is down as we work on Apache a little bit, so I can't be positive, but I am fairly sure that your pre-sales forum questions were answered.

We are working to make sure this doesn't happen in the future, and once again, I apologize for the delay :(


Originally posted by DiamondGal
When I originally posted, I asked that those people not reply because of course it stands to reason that owner/employees are naturally going to speak highly of their business or where they work. I wanted to hear from actual customers that wouldn't be biased.

But, it seems now that I can't get any response at all from HostCulture. :unhappy: If anyone from there is reading this, I have tried to post questions in your Pre-Sales Questions forum as well as sent an e-mail to Aron and have not received any response from either attempt. Maybe the "please don't respond" request was taken a little too far. I only meant that on my initial question here at WHT, but not on your own forum or the e-mail I sent! :eek2:

Anyway, now I am asking, could someone please respond?! :look:

Thanks,
~DiamondGal

Whatever you do avoid Host Rocket!

They are the WORST web host I ever ever dealt with, and I have used many hosts.

I gave HR a fair chance, I stayed with them for 9 months, but to the very end I had repeat problems with my web sites.

Brendan can come on here all he wants and defend his company, but the fact of the matter is he does not know how to run a professional web hosting business.

For more info just go here: www.hostrocketsucks.com

Well, actually I've been a satisfied customer (I even recomend to many my friends to host there) to HR for several months, until a couple week ago.

A couple week ago, suddently my website is "gone". I have approximately 10.000 members (it's an Indonesian's match making website), and many of them send me emails with regard to the disappearing website...

When I check my email, well... there is one from HR that saying account suspension, because my application "using 93.7% of the processing power on the server through apache(web) usage." Well..., it never happen before...! Then.., I open a ticket to clarify why and how to fix it (since I don't know which program that takes a big resources)... Then, the customer support reply:

---------------------------------------------------------
Your site is getting too busy for a shared server and will
need to be upgraded to a semi-dedicated server.

The details of a semi-dedicated account are as follows:
--
Monthly Price: $65.00
Storage: 1GB
Bandwidth: 45GB
Misc.: There is only 5%-10% of the normal amount of users
on the semi-dedicated server.
--
If you can't or aren't willing to upgrade to a semi-
dedicated account your files will be made available for
you to download.
--------------------------------------------------------

I don't think the Customer Support provide me with detail information, he just asking for more money..! If not "go download your files"...! :eek:

Since I don't do (exhoust the resources) intentionally... I got really ....:angry: And HR does NOT warn me about this matter before they taken down my website... I think it not fair...

Well, after many tickets, he finally saying well..., one of your program does that..., if you agree to decrease the usage (resource) he will put back my website... *BUT* AFTER they ask me to close my account... I pay for one year subscribtion.., and they DO NOT give me refund for the rest of my subscribtion that I don't use since they close my website... (they said it's already pass my 14 day money-back guarantee..)

Then I move to AVAILHOSTING... BUT SH.....T they close after I sign-up for 3 days..! (They said they refund my money...), and that HR Customer Support...., suddently send me a respond ticket asking "how is it going with your hosting.."

So..., maybe I'm wrong... or HR Customer Support was not knowledgable in taking good care the customer...!

Just be carefull with your programs and be carefull with HR, since they can pull down anytime your website..!

HR suspended my account also without notice.

I am currently hosting with www.venturesonline.com and I am completely satisfied with them.

An account using 93% of a servers resources, is a problem that requires account suspension. NOT suspending an account like that is irresponsible and causes problems for all of the other users on the servers. Ironmagazine, your account was noted on 5 different occasions for causing problems on the servers, we keep very detailed statistics on this type of thing and your account was consistantly causing problems on all 3 servers that you were moved between during your tenure as a customer. Our employees do not have the capability to suspend an account without notifying the customer via email, its all built into the suspension script so to say you wern't notified means either you are incorrect or had an invalid email address on file with us.

-Brendan

I got the email AFTER my account suspended. It should be *BEFORE* suspended?

I my website: warungjodoh.com (the site still down now, still looking for better hosting provider) was the first time causing the "93% resources taken" from your server... I've never consistantly causing problems to you before...?

I sent you email try to explain the problem with your customer service, but you never reply...?

I totally agree with you: "An account using 93% of a servers resources, is a problem that requires account suspension. NOT suspending an account like that is irresponsible and causes problems for all of the other users on the servers."

BUT..., why don't you let me know BEFORE you suspend my account..? Also, provide detail explanation with regard to that matter, so I could take proper actions from my side to fix the problems at the first time, not just:
------------------------------
Your site is getting too busy for a shared server and will
need to be upgraded to a semi-dedicated server.

The details of a semi-dedicated account are as follows:
--
Monthly Price: $65.00
Storage: 1GB
Bandwidth: 45GB
Misc.: There is only 5%-10% of the normal amount of users
on the semi-dedicated server.
--
If you can't or aren't willing to upgrade to a semi-
dedicated account your files will be made available for
you to download.
---------------------------------------

I personally think that message is not a nice gesture knowing my account is suspended without proper explanations.

Originally posted by HRBrendan
An account using 93% of a servers resources, is a problem that requires account suspension. NOT suspending an account like that is irresponsible and causes problems for all of the other users on the servers. Ironmagazine, your account was noted on 5 different occasions for causing problems on the servers, we keep very detailed statistics on this type of thing and your account was consistantly causing problems on all 3 servers that you were moved between during your tenure as a customer. Our employees do not have the capability to suspend an account without notifying the customer via email, its all built into the suspension script so to say you wern't notified means either you are incorrect or had an invalid email address on file with us.

-Brendan

That's because you overload your servers Brendan, which I voiced this before to your staff.

VenturesOnline has no problems with my site. I have been running my forums (www.ironmagazineforums.com) with them for almost 2 months now.

btw, I received a e-mail after it was suspended.

You are mistaken, plain and simple. VO, who hosts your site now runs servers with less resources than our shared servers (according to their site this may have changed and I am in no way attacking VO) and openly admits to putting 4-500 users per server which is signifigantly more than we have on any of the servers your site was on. Our server loads are maintained on an average of 1-3, which is very acceptable for a dual processor machine.

-Brendan

I think, you (HRBrendan) just ignoring the discussion about suspending account without proper info to your customer, and your customer service is not knowledgable about this matter...

Nothing personal about this.., I just currious why HR could provide services like that... too bad....

Originally posted by asik
*BUT* AFTER they ask me to close my account... I pay for one year subscribtion.., and they DO NOT give me refund for the rest of my subscribtion that I don't use since they close my website... (they said it's already pass my 14 day money-back guarantee..)

Are you saying that you paid for a year up front, but after Hostrocket suspended your site, they refused to refund the unused balance of your hosting fees?

Am I understanding this correctly?

-Bob

Originally posted by HRBrendan
You are mistaken, plain and simple. VO, who hosts your site now runs servers with less resources than our shared servers (according to their site this may have changed and I am in no way attacking VO) and openly admits to putting 4-500 users per server which is signifigantly more than we have on any of the servers your site was on. Our server loads are maintained on an average of 1-3, which is very acceptable for a dual processor machine.

-Brendan

If that's true then tell me why my forums have gone as high as 65 online users without a hick-up or complaint from VenturesOnline?

Also, I was able to call VO on two occasions and have a real conversation with a competent system administrator.

With you guys my site/forums were suspended at 45 online users!

btw, don't you get tired of hanging around this forum defending your company and it's services? :) That should put up a red flag IMO.

Originally posted by TMX


Are you saying that you paid for a year up front, but after Hostrocket suspended your site, they refused to refund the unused balance of your hosting fees?

Am I understanding this correctly?

-Bob


Yes..., I have not received the refund until now...

No, if you read it, you will see that he is being offered the exact refund policy that he agreed to in our terms of service, a 50% refund after 14 days. He is more than welcome to keep his account open and modify his scripts so that they run at an acceptable level of resources for a shared server. Of course you just modified your post and cut out the part where you were offer a refund from our support tech. Putting that up on the forum where you're trying to trash us must have been a mistake.

-Brendan

How is this for customer service: VO just sent out e-mails to all customers telling them that they may exerience 1-2 minutes of downtime on Sunday between 12am and 2am!

very bad experience with hostrockect :( I losed my data .
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52521

I joined with http://www.c4host.com some hour ago , after that I losed all my data on hostrockect , hopying it will be better ..

Yes Brendan...,

In last ticket I received says:


Hi,

Please verify that you have downloaded all of your files
from the server so we can remove them. You are not within
our 14 day money back guarentee period so you will only be
refunded half of what is remaining on your account.


So only half of the unused period remaining. Which it is in line with your policy (I guest?). Thank you. If I was wrong in this matter. I appologize for that.

However...,


Of course you just modified your post and cut out the part where you were offer a refund from our support tech. Putting that up on the forum where you're trying to trash us must have been a mistake.


I don't have any intention to trash you..., since you don't respond to my email, and your customer service was arrogant, you force me to share my *not so good* experiences with HR..., well... it is an effective way to get your attention, right?

as for:

He is more than welcome to keep his account open and modify his scripts so that they run at an acceptable level of resources for a shared server.

After you forced me to close my account? After you close down my website without prior notice? After:

If you can't or aren't willing to upgrade to a semi-
dedicated account your files will be made available for
you to download.


Thank you for your help Brendan..! Because of that my website already down for a week now...

Originally posted by HRBrendan
No, if you read it, you will see that he is being offered the exact refund policy that he agreed to in our terms of service, a 50% refund after 14 days.

According to your TOS, which I just downloaded, the 50% refund is for customer-initiated cancellations. You cancelled him - apparently not because of any outright and willful abuse of resources on his part, but because his site simply became too big for your shared servers to handle. Why then, is he not entitled to the full amount of his unused hosting fees?

Here is the relevant portion of your TOS:

"Cancellation - In the event you cancel your service, you will be charged in full for the entire month in which you canceled your service. Account cancellations for accounts with a negative balance will be passed on to collections, and all services rendered to the party with the negative balance will be terminated, including domain registrations. In the event you have elected to prepay subsequent, additional months' Service Fees, we retain the right to charge you an administrative fee of 50% and deduct the administrative fee from the subsequent, future months' Service Fees before refunding them to you. There is a $50 administrative fee for any chargebacks placed against us. Any chargebacks or threatened chargebacks are grounds for immediate account cancellation."

So, what am I missing?

-Bob

The details of a semi-dedicated account are as follows:

What the heck is a semi-dedicated? It seems HR request that busy sites be moved to this. It is normal for a host to request site upgrade to a VDS (guaranteed reources - hence virtual dedicated) or to a full dedicated, but what is a semi-dedicated? Dedicated means something is dedicated to you - never shared. What is semi-dedicated?

Just curious?

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


What the heck is a semi-dedicated? It seems HR request that busy sites be moved to this. It is normal for a host to request site upgrade to a VDS (guaranteed reources - hence virtual dedicated) or to a full dedicated, but what is a semi-dedicated? Dedicated means something is dedicated to you - never shared. What is semi-dedicated?

Just curious?

Semi-dedicated is a server that only has 10-15 sites on it. Many hosts offer this as a option for a website that is too busy for shared hosting, yet not busy enough for a dedicated server. The going rate for semi-dedicated hosting is around $65 per month.

Originally posted by RobD


Semi-dedicated is a server that only has 10-15 sites on it. Many hosts offer this as a option for a website that is too busy for shared hosting, yet not busy enough for a dedicated server. The going rate for semi-dedicated hosting is around $65 per month.

I figured this much. But what is "dedicated" about it? Is any part of that server or its resources dedicated to just you?

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


I figured this much. But what is "dedicated" about it? Is any part of that server or its resources dedicated to just you?

If you figured that much then what is your question?

It's not a true dedicated server, but it's not really shared since shared hosting typically means your sharing a server with a few hunderd other sites. So, they call it semi-dedicated, which is another way of saying "almost" dedicated.

I'm mostly with Foe on this one. HRBrendan is CEO of the company, so his opinion here is obviously biased. Though, it's nice to see how much more available he is here on this forum than at HostRocket when I was experiencing unresolved issues. Had I known at the time, I'd have checked in here. So, while Brendan will tell you here to simply call, you'll be hard-pressed to find a phone number to call into. I had to do a whois lookup to come up with their Long Distance phone number. Then I had to wait about 30 minutes on hold before my call was eventually picked up.

I'd written many e-mails to Brendan regarding my issues, but he only responded after-the-fact. I'd experienced very poor uptime. Some has been scheduled downtime, however, they've only given very vague same-day notice and that's not even been consistent.

I inquired about the uptime guarantee on many occasions, but responses were simply marked as "answered" in their trouble-ticket system while I tried again and again to get an actual response. At the same time, try to find a time when their "LiveHelp" is actually AVAiLABLE. I found two such occasions. On one, I asked my question and the person never gave me a response. On another, I continued to receive a message saying that the reps were busy and that I should wait. I believe I waited for about 45 minutes, and then eventually disconnected.

Yes, they used to be a really great company. They grew extremely fast, and now they are a let-down. I have an associate I had referred who has 16 accounts there. His clients are all complaining to him about the downtime and unreliability of e-mail, etc. He also had a 48-hour period where he could not access his site via FTP. He put in a trouble ticket and received no response. He's moving his accounts.

Besides, while they advertise 9.95/month, you've gotta prepay a whopping 24-months to get to that price. That's pretty much an unprecendented prepay period. I wonder why.

Don't take my word for it. Try them yourself. You'll pay a 20 dollar setup fee which is non-refundable. And, if they don't meet their uptime guarantee, you'll actually NOT get refunded any money - you'll receive future free credit for future months, that you likely won't be interested in at that point.

Do a google search on Hostrocket. There's lots of info out there that makes for interesting reading.

FutureQuest, HostGo, Activehost, Dreamhost. No worries - you'll be quite happy and relaxed at any of those.

mrk

I agree, if Brendan spent as much time worrying about his current customers as he does defending his company on this board there would be far less complaints about Host Rocket here.

Well, nice job HR - if you go to their home page right now at www.hostrocket.com nothing comes up - just a blank page.

And, if you try their forums at this moment, same deal - nada. Good work.

If you go to their support page, they say their having some e-mail delays - big surprise there.

mrk

If you take the comma out of your hyperlink it works just fine, thanks for noticing though.

We are switching all of our customers over to qmail/vpopmail setup for more reliable email, which is what the email message is about.

-Brendan

Originally posted by HRBrendan

We are switching all of our customers over to qmail/vpopmail setup for more reliable email, which is what the email message is about.

-Brendan

Your company is endless upgrades!

That is all I heard over there for 9 months, we're upgrading this, we're upgrading that! Yet the service never got any better, it was just continous downtime. :rolleyes:

I have not had 1 minute of downtime with VO in the 2 months that my forums have been hosted there.

The comma is gone - same problem - the comma was part of normal grammar and vBulletin should not have included it in the link. The problem remains the same. I was using the correct link from my browser, not clicking on my own msg.

I've actually tried hitting the main page from both my optonline account and from AOL, which take different network paths. The page comes up blank, and DONE with no errors.

mrk

Originally posted by lbeachmike
The comma is gone - same problem - the comma was part of normal grammar and vBulletin should not have included it in the link. The problem remains the same. I was using the correct link from my browser, not clicking on my own msg.

I've actually tried hitting the main page from both my optonline account and from AOL, which take different network paths. The page comes up blank, and DONE with no errors.

mrk

Try this:

http://www.hostrocket.com/home/index.htm

Didn't work for me, just froze my computer

Originally posted by vibehosts
Didn't work for me, just froze my computer

Weird, your got the flash plugin installed in your computer, that URL works/loads fine for me.

Of coarse I do, I love their design and visit it quite often, now a few minute later it is loading.

My site is hosted at Host Culture since April 1 this year (I moved from Aletia). So far, I am very happy with the service and the uptime!
Their support response is within one day but lately it also takes awhile but they are helpful.

I suggest you contact them through email if you have questions for faster reply rather than their forums cause it is really not very active so probably they do not check it much.

I see Brendan hasn't changed. Still arguing with customers instead of resolving the issue. I went through this last year with them. It almost seems like deja vu seeing some of the newer customer's threads. My opinion is, save yourself some aggravation and move on to another company. I did and I have been extemely happy since (I left HR last October).

To the original thread starter (already forgot your name). I know hostrocket *looks* good, but unless your sites gets 10 visitors a day, my suggestion is keep looking.

Originally posted by Randy
I see Brendan hasn't changed.

I'd still like to know why he feels he's entitled to keep Asik's money, even though Hostrocket initiated his cancellation. Hostrocket basically told him to either upgrade to a semi-ded account, or leave. Asik left, and now Hostrocket feels that they're somehow entitled to half of Asik's unused prepaid annual hosting fee.

Brendan says he's acting in accordance with Hostrocket's AUP, but he is not, not by a long shot.

Unfortunately (and predictably), Brendan seems to have chosen not to answer that one....

-Bob

You're missing something, the options are not 'upgrade, or leave' they are 'upgrade your plan and put your prepaid money towards the new plan, work with us to fix the problem script that is affecting the server and remain on the current plan, or find a new webhost'. This is very much within our terms of service, and fairly common practice for a webhost that offers as large of a discount for prepayment as we do.

We are not cancelling his account, we suspended it because it was causing problems on the server which either need to be resolved, or the account needs to be upgraded.

We are here via phone (518-371-3421), email (support@hostrocket.com), and ticket system(http://www.rocketsupport.com) to help resolve problems accounts may be having, people can contact myself included at bbrader@hostrocket.com if they are having troubles getting support via other means.

-Brendan

We are here via phone (518-371-3421), email (support@hostrocket.com), and ticket system(http://www.rocketsupport.com) to help resolve problems accounts may be having, people can contact myself included at bbrader@hostrocket.com if they are having troubles getting support via other means.

Let's see -

Phone: Sometimes they pickup, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you might be on hold until you have to call in on another phone line to let them know they've left you hanging there for over 30 minutes.

E-mail: Usually they'll respond, but you'll usually need a few follow-up questions, most of which will selectively be ignored and closed out as "Answered" - particularly if they're not interested in the subject matter. In my experiences, billing issues were the least likely to be answered. Also, questions about excessive downtime or inquiries about their uptime guarantee - all of those, were pretty plainly ignored. Brendan's ultimate response - "we don't guarantee the response time" - but, if my tickets are marked "Answered" and they actually never were answered, that's a pretty poor response - in fact, either way it's a pretty poor response.

bbrader@hostrocket.com: Good luck. The time I actually did get a response from this method, the response was "Please direct any and all support requests through our ticket system, located at hostrocket.com/support" - and this is quoted directly from my e-mail archives.

Brendan simply is not interested in customer satisfaction. I'm not quite sure why, but this has been made more than clear.

mrk

Hostrocket initiated his cancellation. Hostrocket basically told him to either upgrade to a semi-ded account, or leave. Asik left, and now Hostrocket feels that they're somehow entitled to half of Asik's unused prepaid annual hosting fee.

If you are unable to reach a satisfactory resolution with a company, you can dispute charges through your credit card company and they will help you to resolve the issue. It is a very effective means of protecting a customer's interests. I'm sure it also does not make credit card companies happy to have multiple disputes against a particular company, so perhaps this will encourage the merchant to act in better faith.

You can also file a complaint against a company through the Better Business Beaureu. Again, enough complaints would perhaps have an impact.

I don't have any info on the particular situation being referred to here, but from the information offered, it doesn't sound particularly reasonable. From my experiences, most reputable companies would absolutely refund the unused portion.

mrk

Originally posted by lbeachmike
From my experiences, most reputable companies would absolutely refund the unused portion.

mrk

dont' be so sure, if a client really sucks your bandwidth or resources, you might not feel obligated to refund him nothing

becides, why is the HOST allways the one under fire, if you sign for plan X and you using as much resources as a dedicated server .. it's not the host's fault, and they dont' really have an obligation of giving you anythign back

the whole "customer is allways right" is not allways right ;)

the whole "customer is allways right" is not allways right

One thing you can say about Carlos. He has cajones. :D Even puts this down with his signature. :cool:

Carlos -

As I said, I don't know the history of this - only what was explained briefly here.

And, from that, we're talking about an UNUSED PORTION OF PREPAID HOSTING. So, if it didn't work out, for whatever reason, then why hold the customer hostage? Simply prorate the unused portion of hosting and refund THAT amound to the customer. Re-price things as if the customer was paying month-to-month - whatever - work out a mutually agreeable resolution.

But, to give the customer the choice of either keeping their money or forcing them to upgrade their package is not necessarily reasonable. These circumstances are a bit interpretive in most cases - and even when they are not, the customer will not always have perfect knowledge in advance of all potential circumstances. Most hosting companies provide for their right to terminate accounts at their own discretion, etc. Nobody's debating that need.

Clearly, if I am hosting with a company, I absolutely need to know that they can suspend service on one account that might be clobbering everybody else in terms of performance. We all know how much potential there is for misuse, abuse, or simply ignorant overconsumption of resources adversely affecting everybody else.

BUT, there's absolutely nothing wrong with refunding the prorated portion of unused service if necessary. How many times could this possibly occur? Less than one half of one percent of customer accounts for certain. And, there's nothing being lost - the company will get paid for the services rendered.

I will simply never understand why companies will nickel and dime customers into a bad experience. It's not overall better for business, period. And there are clearly companies that follow a distinct pattern of creating satisfied customers who feel that they've received what they paid for, and then quite the opposite. Which do you want to define your reputation?

mrk

Hey Rally -

Yes, your extended link worked fine. I'm not sure why www.hostrocket.com is not opening the page for me, while the extended link is working perfectly.

I never had the problem in the past and I also tried opening through Opera instead of IE 6 as a sanity check.

This is also the only site I've encountered this problem with, whereas I surf all over the web quite a lot in a given day....

What gives?

mrk

UmBillyCord ... you betcha ;), somebody has to stick for the hosts too .. why do I feel like a spokesperson for the NRA .. ?? :D

lbeachmike

I understand why you say what you do, I really do .. a few years back I would have said the same

the problem lies in the fact that we all like to deal with Hosting companies VERY different than we would deal with other segments of the market

try buying something at any store, bring it back 30 days after you purchased and see if you get a refund or a partial refund ...

the client agrees to purchase plan X from the host for 1 year .. the client is given a discount becuase of it as well as a 30 day money back guarantee, after 30 days, if the client is unable to meet his needs with the plan he choose, it's not the host responsability to refund his money .. I am sorry .. but it really isn't :(

I will give you an example .. I agree to a contract with one of my providers for 2 years .. after 1 year I went all nice ot them and said "will you let me out of the contract ? .. after all, if I am not using the product, I am not incurring in any expense to you" .. they told me "NO .. becuase we EXPECTED that revenue for 2 years, and therefore made plans for it .. just becuase YOU changed, it's not our fault" (talk about a slap in the face, and a lesson in make sure you allways read what you sign)

now, true this is tousands of $$ a month vs .. ? 200 ? 300 ? . but the concept is the same .. :)

Im behind ya Carlos ;) . For $9 / mo you can't really expect to hog an entire servers resources. This is just a generalization on how clients are sometimes unrealistic in their demands, but Im sure any reputable host will make every effort to work with a client.

Well guys - I don't think there's any dispute over your positions.

Carlos - you make an excellent point regarding "expected revenue" - a very important component in running a successful business.

However, this is several steps ahead of what was the original issue with ASIK. If you go back and read his message, he describes something which HostRocket seems to have a poor reputation for. Lack of communication, and lack of working with a customer.

One day, his website was simply gone. He did not receive any warning or notice from hostrocket. The site just vanished, and the only way he found out was when his users sent him inquiries. That is simply terrible business! HostRocket seems to have a reputation of "shoot first, ask questions later" - except for the fact that they don't even seem to have the "ask questions later" part in tact either.

There's nothing wrong with suspending an account because it's adversely affecting the server, and therefore hurting all other users. Nobody here has an expectation that you should simply expect the host to suck it all up at their expense and at the expense of other customers.

But, you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD expect the host to contact you, and to work with you on a resolution. JAG and Carlos - you guys both seem to have very good reputations for your hosting companies. I'm sure that's for a very good reason. I'm guessing that you both are not in the habit of just shutting down accounts without even alerting the customer.

I'm sure you'd also be able to give the customer some guidance to help them figure out what script on their site might be causing problems on the server, or at least point them in some direction as to how they might figure it out. After all, we all know that there are some scripts out there which are known to suck up tons of resources and present a problem. We also know that there are plenty of options.

I've read time and again about how HostRocket has simply shut down accounts without communicating with the customer. They've got a very pompous and arrogant attitude about the customer. Brendan is a 20 year old running a company with 13,000 accounts and is rather arrogant about it, perhaps because he's been so succussful in what he's accomplished.

My own personal experience had my account shut-down with the files instantly vaporized without affording the opportunity to work things out, or even backup my files.

They have a reputation of having an attitude for absolute power/absolute control. They don't seem to have regard for customer satisfaction or customer relationships in any circumstances other than the most basic.

It's likely that ASIK might have had a very simple issue that could have been resolved amicably with proper communication. Perhaps he was running one of the message board scripts that sucks a lot of resources. Perhaps it was one with a GZIP option, and he just needed to turn that option on. We obviously don't know the specific details, but he could have walked away satisfied rather than disgusted with the most basic of efforts from his hosting company.

I'm sure that with that you would not disagree.

Mike

You are wrong about that though, asik was contacted about the suspension with the following letter about it immediatly, to the email address provided by him to us.



Dear Customer:

Your account for example.com was suspended by the server for the following reason:

Using 93.7% of the processing power on the server through
apache(web) usage.

To resolve this as soon as possible, a trouble ticket reguarding this suspension has already been opened for you, and you can reply back to it immediatly by replying to this email. Please keep the subject of this email intact in your response. Please respond back as soon as possible so we can help get your site back up asap.

-HostRocket Support
support@hostrocket.com



That hardly constitutes us going out of our way to be unavailable or unhelpful with the problem.

-Brendan

Brendan -

Your account of matters is what I'd expect from a good hosting company. However, Asik clearly states that your response did not come until he inquired as to why his site was missing.

I am inclined to trust his account of matters since myself and many others share similar experiences of poor communication from your company.

You tend to defend matters after-the-fact rather than dealing with them head on when it would be most timely and valuable to all involved.

mrk

Our tech's are unable to suspend people any other way. To do it they have to provide a reason, in this case:

Using 93.7% of the processing power on the server through
apache(web) usage.

which is then put into a trouble ticket (ticket 29728 in his case), emailed to the customer as per quoted above in a format that they can respond to to reply to the ticket automatically, puts a note on the account so our admins know why they are suspended and so we can keep track of recurrig problems, and then the account is suspended.

This is the same process we have had in place for a few months now as it was pointed out to us by our customers that our older less refined process was causing problems, and put in place to keep the customers informed of exactly what was wrong and how to get it fixed as soon as possible.

-Brendan

As I've said before - my personal experience and your widespread reputation, based upon the first-hand accounts of others, has many of us aware that what you claim and what you actually do have been two different things, with only a vague relationship between the two.

mrk

Originally posted by HRBrendan
You're missing something, the options are not 'upgrade, or leave' they are 'upgrade your plan and put your prepaid money towards the new plan, work with us to fix the problem script that is affecting the server and remain on the current plan, or find a new webhost'.

Is this not what you sent to Asik after suspending his account?:


------------------------------
Your site is getting too busy for a shared server and will
need to be upgraded to a semi-dedicated server.

The details of a semi-dedicated account are as follows:
--
Monthly Price: $65.00
Storage: 1GB
Bandwidth: 45GB
Misc.: There is only 5%-10% of the normal amount of users
on the semi-dedicated server.
--
If you can't or aren't willing to upgrade to a semi-
dedicated account your files will be made available for
you to download.
---------------------------------------

If that is not "upgrade or leave", I don't know what is.

This is very much within our terms of service, and fairly common practice for a webhost that offers as large of a discount for prepayment as we do..

Your TOS doesn't touch this situation at all. In fact, your TOS has holes in it big enough to drive a semi through - which is what brings us here in the first place.

We are not cancelling his account, we suspended it because it was causing problems on the server which either need to be resolved, or the account needs to be upgraded.

I'm not disputing that you had a valid reason to initially suspend the account - if it was hogging server resources to the extent you say it was, then there's no doubt you did the right thing in that regard. However, as far as this relates to your TOS, there's a big difference between someone who's willfully abusing your server/network (spammers, IRC bots, etc...), and a site that's simply grown beyond the limits of it's service plan, as seems to be the case with Asik's site.

If he was unable to afford your semi-ded plan, the options you left him with were tantamount to cancellation. Given this scenario, I have to once again ask how Hostrocket can justify keeping half of his unused prepaid annual hosting fees?

If Asik has his ducks in a row, so to speak, there's not a creduit card company in the world that won't back him should he decide to dispute the charges, your $50 "bully clause" notwithstanding (you can't arbitrarily penalize someone for excercising their rights under various state and federal consumer protection laws).

-Bob

No, that is not what he was sent when he was suspended, as I said before he was sent the following letter which was never replied to. Either he didn't receive it properly or did not reply or whatever happened, I'm pretty sure thats there the problem with communication lies.

-Brendan




Dear Customer:

Your account for example.com was suspended by the server for the following reason:

Using 93.7% of the processing power on the server through
apache(web) usage.

To resolve this as soon as possible, a trouble ticket reguarding this suspension has already been opened for you, and you can reply back to it immediatly by replying to this email. Please keep the subject of this email intact in your response. Please respond back as soon as possible so we can help get your site back up asap.

-HostRocket Support
support@hostrocket.com

Blablah, I have a few sites hosted @ hostrocket.com, no probs with uptime, good bandwith, nice price .. don't hear me complain !

If you want a decent solution for a "normal" site, go for shared hosting with Hostrocket.

dotK -

Sure, I was somebody who recommended HR in the past also. I was a satisfied customer, feeling like I had a great deal and had found a really nice hosting company. I got them three solid referrals, and one of those subsequently hosted 16 accounts!

We were all very happy for a while. And then HR began and slip and slide downward. First my friend had some bad experiences, then I began having some. He is still there stuck in a 24-month contract on at least one account. Nobody does 24-month contracts, but they've got people in them with no way out because their churn would otherwise be through the roof. Then they also bang you with that setup fee because they know that if you're gone in the first month, they've still gotten paid.

So, in hindsight, it becomes obvious what setup fees are designed for. They are basically an overall lack in confidence that the customer will more likely like what they see and stay. This is why most of the great hosting companies have no setup fee.

So, it's just a matter of time, my friend. Though, I'm certain that there are many happy customers there. After all, they do offer a lot of features for the money - no question about that. But when my friend cannot access 16 accounts of his via FTP for two days at a time, and his 16 customers are complaining about not receiving their e-mail, and having downtime on their site, etc., it's not just a matter of one person's opinion any longer.

And, when the company treats a dissatisfied customer like crap, rather than try to make things right, there's something really wrong. They did not honor their guarantee. They marked my tickets as "answered" without even responding.

I've got the entire history. This isn't a made up story. However, there are lots of variables.

I have five other hosting accounts with no problems at all. And I've got many others with the exact same horror stories. Thus, I can safely conclude that this is not my own imagination. In fact, if you go to www.hostrocketsucks.com, and read that user's account, it pretty much parallels my own experience and what I've vaguely described here.

You can find similar accounts of similar experiences with them throughout the web if you poke around. I'm sorry that I did not initially further research my hosting decision there.

Mike

Mike,

Your account was closed for terms of service violations, including harassing my support staff. This is something that I flat out do not tolerate. You don't pay $10/month for the right to make one of the most thankless jobs in the world even worse by going out of your way to be a complete jerk in tickets to the people doing whatever they can to help you.

We are here via phone (518-371-3421), email (support@hostrocket.com), and ticket system(http://www.rocketsupport.com) to help resolve problems accounts may be having... people can contact myself included at bbrader@hostrocket.com if they are having troubles getting support via other means.

People who can not conduct themselves in a grown up fashion through our provided technical support means will need to do as you were told to do, and find a new webhost. You are one of 3 customers in 3 years that I have had to do this with, part of a fairly elite group I must say.

You are one of 3 customers in 3 years that I have had to do this with, part of a fairly elite group I must say.

Excellent Brendan - if you tell the lies often enough, perhaps you yourself begin to believe them. I have information to the contrary. In fact, you guys have a reputation for terminating accounts. It's amazing how many others out there have heard of your reputation. Since my experience with you guys, and since I've now actually asked around, it is truly remarkable at how many people have had similar experiences, or know of others who've had similar experiences.

You very clearly stated the reason for terminating my account previously. It was stated solely due to the "chargebacks or threatened chargebacks" clause after I had informed you that I was going to dispute the non-refunded charges with my credit card company.

Your support staff refused to respond to inquiries - particularly those regarding the severe downtime of your servers and my questions about the uptime guarantee. I asked these questions repeatedly and had my tickets closed being marked "answered" - I eventually referred to the support staff as "clowns" and provided an adequate explanation of my frustrations.

I'm not sure that this would actually constitute harrassment, but it was one of the few things which they actually responded to rather promptly. Unfortunately, you guys are responsive to the wrong things.

Ultimately, I disagree with your reference to tech support being one of the most thankless jobs. Perhaps that is true when these people are working for YOU. But, on the contrary, I have been most appreciative of the tech supports excellent efforts at my other hosting accounts - HostGo, ActiveHost, FutureQuest and Hostit365 immediately come to mind. I believe they've received nothing but endless thanks and appreciation. Dreamhost has also done very well over the long run, though they've been a bit slow lately, but nonetheless reliably responsive and aiming to satisfy the customer.

You guys have the honors of being the only hosting account of the bunch I've had in recent times where I was completely disgusted by the support and the attitude of support.

And in fact I did contact you directly. You were unresponsive until my account was actually cancelled. You stepped in after-the-fact when you were ever-so-proud of your ability to surprise somebody by terminating their account.

In the end, you do not win. People here see what you are all about. They see you writing arrogant messages, defending the poor practices of your company, rather than having a cheerful pleasant attitude, compassionate for the issues that your company has been experiencing and talking about what is being done. They see somebody who spends their time acting pompous rather than dealing with the real issues.

Thanks so much for supporting my view and showing your true colors to the rest of the audience.

All of this time spent here could have perhaps cleanly resolved my dissatisfaction as well as that of your other customers. I've already cited a 16-account sub of yours who is unhappy, but you've locked him into a 24- month contract.

Excellent. When you can't please them, hold them hostage. When you have a customer who's savvy enough to request that you honor your uptime guarantee, ignore them until they are forced to dispute things externally.

Pour it on here Brendan. Show everybody who is the 20-year old pompous president and CEO of Hostrocket. You'll really win them over.