I am having a nightmare with one of my reseller hosting accounts, which reinforces the need to be very careful when you choose your reseller provider. Remember, the crediblity of YOUR business depends on who you partner with to provide your hosting.

So don't just look for the cheapest reseller account.

Here's what happened to me. One of my client's sites got hacked. I asked my reseller provider to restore the old site from a backup. The most recent backup they had was from May, which fortunately didn't matter too much with this particular site, as it's a static site and hasn't changed since May.

BUT .... imagine my horror when I found they had restored not only the hacked site back to May but also my entire reseller account. Even worse, this includes my WHMCS billing system. So suddenly I found my WHMCS back to May. All clients I have acquired since then have gone, along with all my billing records.

I have asked them to restore it back to the way it was yesterday. I have been waiting several hours. They asked me if I had a backup of the WHMCS database, which made me assume the worst. They have lost my accounts since May.

Later, I got another reply saying they will resotre my sites to the way they were yesterday. Several hours later, they are still not restored and my WHMCS just sent out a whole lot of automated invoices from May :-(

I also have reseller accounts with Hostgatgor (the best) and Knownhost (also good). I have been with this other company about six months, and only have about 20 clients with them .... but it has been one problem after another.

My advice, stick to a reputable company like Hostgator that know what they are doing and have a track record. Beware cheaper resellers.

Yes, S*** happens - but you are also responsible for the data of your clients. Make sure you have backups.

And I suppose you have backups from WHMCS? Right? THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS DATA, you cannot count on a 3rd party for this...

Hostgator is not the only reputable reseller out there. Innohosting also has a great reputation.

There are loads of hosts on these boards, but in the end a host thats great for one person might not be for another. So ask your questions, do your searches but in the end you will eventually need to pick one and hopefully if you have done your research it will be a good fit.

Plainwords,

Who is the reseller your having troble with?
Cheaper can be VERY good - even EXCELLENT!

Appreciate if you would share the company name.

<<< Signatures need to be set up in your profile. >>>

Yes, who is this incompetent company?

I would also like to point out that there are MANY competent reseller hosting providers out their, and as Tim stated, opinions differ =]

I hope you do have a backup of your WHMC data though...

I would rather not name the company. I guess I just put this post up because I was feeling so angry about the situation and needed to get it off my chest. But I don't want to bad mouth any company by naming them.

That's very honorable of you. As too many people just come on wht to bash other hosts and some even sign up just to do that.

BUT .... imagine my horror when I found they had restored not only the hacked site back to May but also my entire reseller account. Even worse, this includes my WHMCS billing system. So suddenly I found my WHMCS back to May. All clients I have acquired since then have gone, along with all my billing records.

Ouch. That was one big error on their part. This is why I almost always confirm everything with my clients. The majority of technical support with ReadyWire is provided over troubletickets. As you and I both know, it's easy to misinturpret an email message. Confirm, confirm, confirm. That's my motto. :)

Also, keep in mind that whmcs has an auto ftp/email back up solution and everyone should be using it or something equivalent. NEVER rely on your host to maintain backups. If they do, those are the backups of YOUR backups, not the other way around.

Shocking that the backups were so old and that they would make a sweeping change like that. I do agree with the others that it is important to maintain backups of your critical data (WHMCS, for instance) so let this be a lesson. :)

I also have reseller accounts with Hostgatgor (the best) and Knownhost (also good). I have been with this other company about six months, and only have about 20 clients with them .... but it has been one problem after another.

My advice, stick to a reputable company like Hostgator that know what they are doing and have a track record. Beware cheaper resellers.

Am curious to know, have you ever asked Hostgator to restore a backup and do they do it right. You clearly mentioned other hosts being really bad at restoring, but out of curiousity , how quick does Hostgator do it...

Did those hosts do anything good (the old ones with backup mistakes) ? Let us know if they cleaned up and got you a recent backup :)

Regards