Hi,

are there any very reliable offers for reseller accounts out there for the following:

1.500+ MB
20+ GB bandwidth
unlimited domains, mySQL, maillists etc.
extremely good and reliable support
very good/excellent uptime

Maybe: shell/root access

Must-be: payment methods easy and cheap to use for Europeans (e.g. e-banking like on 2checkout) rather than CC/Paypal-only

host location: preferably US

Greetings

OK

You should be able to find a host for that price but you will not have root access :P.

Why do you need shell enabled?

Unless you are installing software at the root level, it is rarely needed. These days, most control panels / ftp software can do the things that once required shell access.

For root access, you will have to go for a VPS or a ded server.

You won't find root or even shell access with resellers.. LOL

Anyway, try PremiumReseller.com

Hi,

actually the best international/multilingual CMS unfortunately need at least shell access, some shell/root access.

Greetings

OK

Well you'll be needing either a VPS or a dedicated server then.

Hi,

well, I can work without shell access, but not without proper payment methods.

I just wanted to sign on at knownhost.com, for their good rep, when noticing that I can't really pay them easily and for clients it's even worse.

I truly had it up my eyebrows with US webhosts not providing payment methods for non-US-customers. CCs, Paypal and money orders don't work well for Europeans, checks, money transfers and e-cash do. The only merchant account provider I know who caters to this is 2checkout.

So basically I look for a host with the same rep as knownhost for support and reliability who is a bit more welcoming to non-US-customers with regard to payment methods.

Greetings

OK

It'll be very hard to find a reliable hosting with SSH access for that price ;)

If you minus SSH access, you can get plenty of good hosts in your budget. For rest of your requirement I can suggest you to have a look at budgetreseller.com

Just out of curiosity, what about moneybookers.com? Isn't that the European equivalent of PayPal? From what country are you making the payments?

Hi,

it's pretty regardless where from Europe you originate, Europeans usually do not pay by credit card. I lived in Germany, France, Italy and currently in Czechia, clients of mine, whom I like to refer to the same host I am myself on, originate from many more European and non-European (but non-US too) countries.

Here exist various very secure, free or low-fee means to pay:

- bank card/e-cash (cost free, taken in every shop)
- guaranteed checks (cost free for the merchant, guaranteed to be cashed)
- money transfers (the main basic payment method for all things, cost free or low-fee)
- bank draws (any merchant can draw on a bank account, if permission is given. No fee for customer)

Truly secondary are credit cards, they are difficult to acquire over here (almost the same paperwork and difficulty as getting e.g. a house or bank credit), very expensive in effective cost, depending on make there are many shops which don't take them, and many online merchants don't either. Also there's lots of CC fraud around, people are not very tolerant with that and tend to distrust CCs. I have lots of acquaintances who have turned theirs in after some mishap.

Practically no money orders, the only place you can get - physically - m.o.'s is at American Express outlets, those are few and far between and it's expensive. Roughly 10 US$ to have one written out.

Postal Money Orders are here processed through Western Union these days, and they cost an arm and a leg! For e.g. 120 US$ you pay minimally 25 bucks as a fee.

Paypal is not that well accepted in Europe as in the USA, the main reason being its curious account freezing/chargeback policies, that there is no really fast and easy stocking up with money and the fact that it's not really a bank.

Moneybookers is even less known and again has the problem of how to stock money there in the first place.

Lastly, in just about all of Europe cash is still widely used.

The US and the European system of banking/money transferral really does not connect well. There are a few - very few - solutions:

- some banks cooperate with US-banks, so that you can order a check issued in US$$ through your European account to be delivered by a US bank to a US firm. This is pretty lowcost for both sides, and the check is of course covered, as no European bank will verse money to a US bank unless it has already deduced it from the customer. But many US hosts do not take any checks, because they confound such versement checks with US type personal checks.

- merchants offering 2checkout can opt for a feature which allows Europeans to verse (free of a fee) money onto a European bank account owned by 2checkout. There may be a few more merchant account systems which offer that, I don't know any more though.

- both merchant and customer have a banking account at the same globally active bank.

- you can send cash.

That's just about it.

So what's basically happening with a host who reduces payment methods to those a European can't work with, is that he won't receive any custom by people who don't have a credit card. He may think that all people have those, because his clients have them, but these are only such clients who had them in the first place. The rest migrate immediately upon reading payment methods to European hosts.

I e.g. have a few clients myself from Russia, Dagestan, India and various African states. They do not have any CCs. Period. They can't get any either, and no one having one would deign to let someone use his, who can't get one. So I often get versed money or people will send me cash in a letter. As I accept that they are extremely happy to find a reseller host who will. I even buy domains for them, as CCs rule there too and I can use a domain registrant who will take e-cash/drawn money too.

The point is that a host wanting to "play globally" really is mistaken if he thinks that by using US american payment methods he has the world market covered. He hasn't, he gets only a small sliver of it.

Greetings

OK

ACH transactions (where one bank gives money to another bank at no charge to the customer) can be handled by both PayPal and moneybookers (you are not limited to just credit cards). If you have a bank account, you can use it instead.)

I'm not sure about Europe, but in the US we now have pre-paid Visa/Mastercard cards. You can recharge them at ATM-like machines by adding cash. They've been around for a while but recently they have become much more popular, and the name of the program recently changed, as it is now being advertised on television.

In this way, any one can make credit card payments without having to register for a debit card, and without having to pay all the fees or even have a bank account. (They just don't get the protection that comes with having an actual credit card.)

In the end, you have to somehow send money overseas, and I don't think there is any way for that to be done for free. At least not a reliable solution that isn't a lot of hassle for the host, unless you are willing to use some sort of mainstream service.

extremely good and reliable support
very good/excellent uptime


If you want to get service with fast support and good uptime when you must increase your budget little more. If you read the reviews on WHT when you can find a lot of reliable hosting providers.

With your budget you can find good resellers but no root access

You'll never get root access on any shared or reseller account. User-level shell access (often jailed) is quite commonly available for resellers though and is very convenient for software installs / updates.

But your budget is really bottom of the range for reseller accounts - I don't know that you can expect very good / excellent uptime at that price. Add in the requirement for ssh and special payment methods and you really limit your options...

There are many hosts offer starter reseller account within the budget.
I don't see any problems with uptime/service.
Starter account means less disk space and bandwidth quota.

Many of them will provide you SSH access with verifying identification.. ask the host about it.

Hi Eventy,

the problem with Paypal drawing money from/giving access to your bank account - in my personal book and I know people who had trouble - is that it not just takes quite long to be processed, it also means that you give a company access to your bank account which itself is no bank. Throw into that their chargeback policies, the fact that they often freeze ANY account in contact with someone they consider having done something they have to reverse and that 6+ months backwards time they do this .... you can just as well hand the stash to a kid to play with in an open street full of thugs.

We have prepaid VISA cards too. They cost some 40-50 $$ in fixed fees per year plus transaction fees plus money exchange fees, they also are not really easy to acquire (you can't just go into a shop and buy one, you need to complete the whole bureaucratic rigmarole you have to complete for normal CCs as well!) and you can't just recharge them on any old ATM, you have to verse the bank (issueing that card) money first.

And so sorry to put it so harshly, those solutions (versing money, paying cash, having money drawn, e-cash-bankcards) I wrote about, very definitely ARE the mainstream solutions in Europe and many other geographic areas.

US hosts wishing to easily market to Europeans should finally come to realize that the banking/money systems between there and here are FUNDAMENTALLY different in their workings. Mainstream in the USA is the exact opposite of mainstream in Europe.

So what is needed is at least informing oneself about the differences and catering to them in at least one or two ways. It should be no problem choosing a CC processing merchant account which also has a system for Europeans without CC in place. It can't hurt accepting cash in mail (except that for that hosts would have to face up to a real address and full name, right?) and it just doesn't do, to keep refusing guaranteed checks because one is unwilling to find out why they are different from US personal checks.

Yes, shell after verification of identity I saw offered by various hosts. 10-15 USD for less than 2 GB I really can't consider low. Most offer way more than 4 GB for that price.


Greetings

OK

Hi Eventy,

the problem with Paypal drawing money from/giving access to your bank account - in my personal book and I know people who had trouble - is that it not just takes quite long to be processed, it also means that you give a company access to your bank account which itself is no bank. Throw into that their chargeback policies, the fact that they often freeze ANY account in contact with someone they consider having done something they have to reverse and that 6+ months backwards time they do this .... you can just as well hand the stash to a kid to play with in an open street full of thugs.

Yeah, thats pretty harsh. We all know people who've had their PayPal accounts frozen. I agree that in some cases PayPal is pretty ridiculous in that regard, but to my knowledge PayPal has never raided anyone's bank account. They may freeze funds that you've already deposited pending an investigation, and it takes them an insanely long amount of time to get around to completing that process, but as far as I know the funds are eventually returned.

I'll admit I don't know much about European currency, and your post has been enlightening. I will have to look in to it more.

As for 2 gigs for $10 to $15, yes, there are lots of hosts who offer more than that for that price, but of course you know that when plan sizes get to be too big quality suffers. I think the amounts you are looking will not be the highest quality, but certainly not the lowest either.

The only concern is shell. If you are paying in cash it will be hard to validate your identity. Some hosts will forego that requirement if you have already been with them a while at the time you request shell access.

I hope it works out for you.

Hi Eventy,

LOL - oh they do, if they have access to your banking account and you get chargebacks which are not covered by your Paypal account, they do pull the difference from your bank account. I know about 2 such cases and it was extremely difficult for the owners of these accounts to get the money back - especially as the chargebacks were unfounded. And my brother had some 2000+ USD frozen for more than a year before he got the money back. Not funny at all.

It's as easy as please identifying oneself, you send in a certified (by state clerk) copy of your ID card.

Well, all this still hasn't helped me to a reliable host with an open financial method. And I do need one pronto.

Greetings

OK

Hi,

are there any very reliable offers for reseller accounts out there for the following:

1.500+ MB
20+ GB bandwidth
unlimited domains, mySQL, maillists etc.
extremely good and reliable support
very good/excellent uptime

Maybe: shell/root access

Must-be: payment methods easy and cheap to use for Europeans (e.g. e-banking like on 2checkout) rather than CC/Paypal-only

host location: preferably US

Greetings

OK

Most of your requirements are fairly reasonable except the root part. You wont find that anywhere unless you go the way of a VPS and I doubt you'll find one in your budget. However you could get simple jailShell with most providers, though resposible ones would ask for ID before giving it.

Good luck with your search :)