Has anyone else ever used Dreamhost web hosting services? If so, were you satisfied with them or not? Their website address is www.dreamhost.com.

I have a serious problem with their ethics and I have filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office. Until this process is complete I will not go into specific details about what they did, but I hope that anyone out there who is considering using their service to please research this company before you sign up with them. I learned the hard way that you must choose your web hosting company very carefully and not assume that everything they promise is the truth. You must do your research even if someone else refers them.

I look forward to your comments.

Important Note: I do not want ANYONE from Dreamhost to contact me under any circumstances!

I seem to hear a lot of praises about dreamhost, but I was charged twice (for one month) even after I cancelled my account. I had to get a chargeback.

Hi Xandra,

If you were overcharged, you could have simply requested a refund from our billing department. Sending us an email is usually much easier than filling out a disputed charge claim form with your credit card company. :)

kmfletcher, I realize that you're not interested in any sort of dialogue with DreamHost at this time. If you change your mind, however, feel free to send me a private message (or reply to this thread) and I would be happy to work with you. If you feel you've been misled by our company, I'd be very interested in learning the details and working to ensure that it does not happen again.

Thanks,

Brett
DreamHost.com

Well that sounded down to earth and honest! Hopefully you'll be able to sort out the problem you folks have without getting Attorney Generals and the like involved.

Say it with me....

C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N is the path to success!

Okay . . . . C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N is the path to success!

But, kmfletcher31 'did' say, "Important Note: I do not want ANYONE from Dreamhost to contact me under any circumstances!."

That tone is, generally, reserved for 'after' communication failed. Not trying to read anything into it. It just seems pretty straight forward that they do not want to talk to Dreamhost at this point.

Brett,

Where have you been? You seem to be the most mature person at Dreamhost that I have heard from.

Thank you very much for agreeing to actually listen to the situation. I am going to briefly explain what happened here on this post and if you have to reply to me, I would request that you post it here for everyone to see. Just please don't post any of my private information such as address, account #, etc.

I'm sure you know that when a customer feels that they do not have a voice or proper response to a complaint that this creates anger and resentment. The anger and resentment I feel towards Dreamhost is not like any other feeling that I have ever had towards a company.

What happened was there was a misunderstanding on my part about how and where to change host name servers. Upon first signing up with your company I read over a lot of the information that you had posted about how to do this. Despite this, I thought that my old web host was responsible for changing this information for me. Ironically, when I asked this of them, they agreed to do this. I realize now that it was not them but me who was supposed to make this change. You see, when I was told by Dreamhost back in March that my registrar had to change my host name servers I thought the "Registrar" was my previous web host.

Sometime back in April or May I decided to take my website down. I was in the process of reorganizing my company and didn't want potential customers to see the old website with the old information. So for months I had a sort of "Under Construction" web page up. By the way, the reason for the reorganization was because I had gotten sick, in which I received disability, and was unable to earn a living for several months.

Now, about two weeks ago after working so hard to redesign my website I tried to upload it (actually I did upload it) and when I checked my website from a different computer I was mortified to find out that the old "construction site" was still up. This was after I told many people about my website including having my web address printed on business cards, flyers and even on the sign on my vehicle. When I uploaded the site again I was disappointed to see that the "construction" page was still up.

I contacted Dreamhost to find out why and was told that the reason my site was not showing up was because it wasn't on your servers. I found out that it was my old web host who was hosting my site all along and that was why the old website was still showing up. Nonetheless I tried very hard to do what I had to do to get my site up including asking for assistance from your support team. I remember specifically asking for the correct host server names so that I could update this information with Network Solutions. I got a reply and when I went to Network Solutions I was told that the information was incomplete and that I could not update the information. When I asked your support team what they thought the problem was, they said they did not know.

But the last straw was when I got someone from Network Solutions to submit the change for me over the phone only to be told the next day that there was no record of the request. The customer service agent told me that the misinformation that was given to me by Dreamhost was probably the cause.

The culprits or the Dreamhost support team members I am speaking of are Jeff and Sarah. Instead of giving me what I needed and taking my questions seriously, they either gave me misinformation, became defensive or said they just didn't know. This really irritated me. And the irritation really began when Jeff told me that Dreamhost was not responsible for making sure that my website was on the correct server.

Now let me ask you, when I was trying my best why didn't they just get up off their butts and help me out instead of sitting back and acting defensive. All I wanted was to get my website online so my customers could see it! Money was not really an issue with me since my site was down all of these months and I was still paying for it. But their laid-back attitudes really irritated the hell out me and angrily told him so in an email and demanded that my account be closed ASAP. After that something happened that puzzled me. First, Jeff, who appeared to be the one in charge passed this situation on to Sarah. Before that, he seemed to be quite sensible despite other things. Handing this situation to Sarah was the worst thing he could have possibly done because Sarah is the most inept, immature and laziest customer service rep that I have ever seen. After telling my that "she did not know" the answers to my questions when I was trying to get my site up, she all of the sudden comes forth with a wealth of information about how I should have known where all of the information that I requested was posted on your site. It was almost funny. How did she expect me to know all of this when she didn't even know this herself. She also would apologize for her errors (she calls them "oversights") and then turn around and say that they were not her errors but mine's.

For example, when I told her that she gave me incomplete host name servers she apologized, but came back the next day and said that not all Registrars needed the IP addresses that I wasn't supplied with. She said that Network Solutions was the only one that required it. I guess she forgot that she specifically told me to go to Network Solutions in the first place. She continued to polute my email box with long and tedious emails which were irrelevant to me because I had already demanded that my account be closed. I didn't care about Dreamhost, or her long winded excuses. But finally, she did email me telling me that my account was cancelled. After that, I had all messages from Dreamhost blocked by AOL.

I don't know if the rest of you are aware of what she was doing. It would seem to me that once a customer declares any kind of adverse action against a company that it would be stupid to continue to contact this person, especially to make nasty remarks and innuendos. I will print these out and fax them to you if you'd care to seem them. I think Sarah has a serious mental problem, (probably Obssesive Compulsive Disorder). By her emails she seemed to be desperate to prove to me that she did in fact have brains and was not lazy. In actuality, she only confirmed my original assessment of her and convinced me that it was now my obligation and not just my desire to report Dreamhost to the Attorney General's Office. On positive note, she also showed me that I was probably wrong about Jeff and that it was Sarah all along with her inexperience and stupidity.

It is actually her that I don't want to hear from. Like I said, I will print out these emails she sent me before finally doing her job and closing my account. It is up you at Dreamhost if you want to keep her or not. If it were me, I would get rid of her because she is a magnet for trouble.

Please excuse my negative reply, but I just had to get this off of my chest.

I really do hope you have a pleasant afternoon.

Karen Fletcher

Before I begin please know that I've read through your complete email correspondence with both Jeff and Sarah.

It appears that the problems you encountered were a result of Network Solutions' apparent inability to change your domain's DNS server settings. The servers that they should have attempted to use were:
ns.newdream.net
ns2.newdream.net
ns3.newdream.net

Our DNS IP addresses change from time to time, so it's best to use the hostnames listed above instead of the actual IPs when making DNS changes. It looks like our IPs did in fact change between the time you requested them and the time the DNS change was attempted. It sounds like you may have been giving Network Solutions the older IPs, and that would have resulted in the problems you described when attempting to change your domain's DNS.

Looking through your email history, it's clear that you were never told about the possibility of IPs that change. That would be our fault.

Your site with DreamHost was active and working properly through this entire ordeal, and the old DNS information in your domain's whois info was the only thing preventing you from seeing your new site served from our servers.

Allow me to defend our policies a bit here. When you mention that Jeff and Sarah 'sat back and acted defensively,' there wasn't much that they could do at that point. We provide all of our customers with the same DNS information and request that they make the change with their registrar when signing up for service with us. In most cases this doesn't present problems. If we had the power to make the change for you, we would have. We were not the original registrar for your domain, however, so our hands were tied.

DNS changes are handled by a separate party entirely (your registrar,) and the documentation that you receive when signing up for service with us includes the information that you'll need to configure your domain to work with DreamHost. If the registrar encounters a problem, there's really not much that we can do, as the ball is really in their court at that point. That's unfortunately just the nature of the industry. We do provide domain registration services ourselves, and that helps somewhat as the domains are in our system and we can make changes quickly and easily for you. However, when a domain is registered elsewhere we cannot provide you with that same level of support.

While I agree with you that Sarah didn't always provide the most helpful information, I did not see anything from her that I would consider to be a "nasty remark" or "innuendo." I did see a few vaguely-worded messages of a technical nature from her that clearly didn't help to explain things at all. She could have done a lot to explain the process in more detail, and to avoid making this such a long and aggravating process for you. I apologize for the confusing, incomplete, and roundabout instructions you've received from Sarah.

If you have an issue with anyone from our technical support team members, you're more than welcome to request a contact from their supervisor. I'm going to send you a private message right now with the contact information for Brian, the head of our technical support team. I've let Brian know about the situation, and he would be happy to discuss Sarah's conduct with you if you would like. We take criticism very seriously as we want to ensure the best hosting experience for all of our customers. I apologize that your experience with us was less than pleasant.

We're always willing to work with customers on issues like these. I would hope that you wouldn't judge the quality of our service based on your interactions with one well-meaning but misinformed employee.

I wanted also to thank you for bringing this to our attention. When complaints go somewhere like the attorney general's office, they don't always make it to our office. Contacting us directly is the best way to be heard, but we support your right to seek assistance from anyone and everyone. :)

I'll also be sending you a private message with my contact information so that you can contact me directly with any comments or concerns that you've got. Thanks for giving us a chance to tell our side of the story. :)

Best,

Brett

:eek:

<While I agree with you that Sarah didn't always provide the most helpful information, I did not see anything from her that I would consider to be a "nasty remark" or "innuendo." I did see a few vaguely-worded messages of a technical nature from her that clearly didn't help to explain things at all. She could have done a lot to explain the process in more detail, and to avoid making this such a long and aggravating process for you. I apologize for the confusing, incomplete, and roundabout instructions you've received from Sarah. >

I will say one more thing and then I will leave this alone. Sarah's tone in her messages were (in my opinion) somewhat cynical and derisive. For example she wrote to me "It's a shame that it took you six month's to figure out that your site wasn't hosted on our servers". (Did you see that one?)

As far as I was concerned Sarah was on a mission and that was to try to make me feel that my complaints had no merit whatsoever. She was only concerned about herself. Any objections or explanations that I made were thrown back at me while she continued to excuse her errors and bombard me with information that was incorrect or incomplete.

I am relieved to hear that there are actually other staff members besides her and Jeff. It appeared that she was some sort of pit bull guarding the email and preventing me from voicing my complaints to a more experienced and understanding team member. It really did seem that Dreamhost allowed the 'fox to guard the henhouse' and I was wondering what in the world was going on here. Why was Sarah allowed to run amock like that and almost ruin the image of a good company. Do you plan to watch her from now on and monitor her interactions with customers? For Dreamhost's sake I hope so.

I guess the problem is that I just don't like Sarah. But I am very sorry that things came to this. I am however, beginning to feel a little bit better about your company knowing that there are people like you and Brian who care about their customers' feelings. That was the only reason I was going to the Attorney General's office because I felt that that was the only way to make my voice heard.

I filled out all of the paperwork but had not the time or opportunity to mail it yet. It doesn't appear that I have to. As a business owner I would not want someone to file a public complaint against me if I did what I could to resolve the problem. That just wouldn't be fair.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak out. That's all I have to say about this matter.

Have a very nice evening.

Honestly, you over-reacted to the whole thing.

Anybody with Verisign (aka Network Solutions) as a domain registrar is always in for some very exciting times when making any changes, especially pointing to nameservers. It's probably the domain registrar that should be blamed more than the webhost. Verisign could have helped you out. Hint: it sure is easy to transfer domains from there to GoDaddy or somebody else.

Dreamhost! Hmmm almost went there for one site. I saw some sites hosted there and from that samples, it looked like more of a specialty host for in certain themes. Maybe it was the client base.

kmfletcher31 wrote:
>I think Sarah has a serious mental problem, (probably Obssesive Compulsive Disorder)... that it was Sarah all along with her inexperience and stupidity.

Hmmm... Didn't you think that Sarah might be a Brett's wife, or sister, or daughter?...

<Hmmm... Didn't you think that Sarah might be a Brett's wife, or sister, or daughter?...>

Yes, I certainly did. But that was of no concern to me. I thought Sarah was (and probably still is) a major pain in the ass and no matter how much they love her, they must realize that this is business and she should learn to behave herself. Because in all probability, I'm not the first person she has done that to.

If my husband and I owned a business together and he found out that I was throwing money out of the window he would have no choice but to talk to me about it. Love is love but the bills still have to be paid.

Originally posted by intellec
Anybody with Verisign (aka Network Solutions) as a domain registrar is always in for some very exciting times when making any changes, especially pointing to nameservers. It's probably the domain registrar that should be blamed more than the webhost. Verisign could have helped you out. Hint: it sure is easy to transfer domains from there to GoDaddy or somebody else.


I agree. I have two Domains with Verisign and it took me multiple phone calls recently to get a few nameserver changes pointing in the correct direction and I have a decent handle on the system.

Yep, just about every time a client comes to us with Verisign as a registrar, there's some kind of problem.

I just find it odd that everyone has trouble with Netsol (Verisign)

THe two domains i own, I never had any trouble with them even when I changed over to Dreamhost. Dreamhost's instructions were very clear and VERY to the point. I learned real quick on how nameservers worked and have been a VERY and EXTREMELY happy customer with Dreamhost for now two years. Did not even have trouble chaning my nameserve from Interland over to Dreamhost and they propogated in less than 2 days. Considering that My old domain was going to be handled by Interland, Dreamhost was the light at the end of the tunnel compared to the nightmare I would have faced when Interland took over ICOM.com. I host three domains with Dreamhost currently and find their services above expected and hope they continue to provide the great service they have already given me.

I just wanted to clarify that Sarah and I are in no way related. :) We simply work for the same company.

Well my experience may not hold much relevance anymore as it's been may a moon since I had a site with them.

Dreamhost was my first host. In the time I was with them uptime was good, and support was above average (within 24 hours for a response). The account I had was their smallest, and didn't have cgi which was the reason I moved on.

The experience was a good one though, and the last time I checked their site they've added and improved a great deal (though I obviously have no experience with support).

They've been around a long time, and host thousands. Given the very small complaint level I've ever seen of them here, or on directories, I'd say they're still holding the ball quite well.

I've always had a soft spot for 'quiet achievers' in this industry and think Dreamhost would fall into that category. They're one of the few webhosts I can really comment on with experience before 'going it alone' and my memories of them are pretty good :)

Greg Moore

I don't have any comments on Ms. Fletcher's problems with Dreamhost other than to say it doesn't reflect my experience with them at all. I have been with them for more than a year and really have nothing to complain about. Uptime is great, mail service is consistant and all the new services they have added this year at no additional cost are great!!!

I also had no problem with their original instructions regarding directing my domain to their servers (though I am not using Network Solutions)...

CMO

Netsol / Verisign continues to be a MAJOR hassle when something needs to get done. While I can't speak at all about the particulars in this thread, it is my experience that even people who know what they're doing in this business have a hard time when it comes to Verisign. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who isn't familiar with switching DNS info to have to deal with those people.

The last 4 requests I've made of Verisign have all required numerous phonecalls, requests to speak to people's superiors, and almost always (and I don't typically handle things this way) near yelling.

Nothing frustrates me more than issuing a simple request, having it denied with Netsol's authentication methods, and finally talking to someone there who says, "Hmmm... well, I can't help you- but I can put you through to someone who can take care of this right away for $19.95 (or $29.95- whatever it is; their express action deal). Especially when you're paying them to be the registrar on the domain in question.

I despise them.

I work at Infinethosting and I would say that the Bigest Registar problem that we have is when the customer no longer has access to the Administrative Contact E-mail.

it seems like it always is a problem getting the custome to FAX netsol even though we have the # posted on our website and We Provide a Template.

netsol takes their good old time sometimes Weeks to change a manual domain.

there must be a better way to verify Domain name ownership other than Fax or Snail mail


Sam

<<MOD NOTE: Fixed accidentally blocked URL in this post, all is well>>

Originally posted by Infinethost
there must be a better way to verify Domain name ownership other than Fax or Snail mail

Yes, it's password/username and e-mail like the way any of the opensrs registrars do it. :)

Greg Moore

Dreamhost hosted service has been down for four days and counting. Sometimes you get a response to requests for support, sometimes not. Summary of interactions:
Dear dreamhost, my x is not working

1-3 days later

Dear customer, your x is working fine now

Dear dreamhost, I tested x, its still not working

1-3 days later

Dear customer, your x is working fine now

This goes on for some time until x works

x=
website being hosted
email
accounts not being set up
incorrect charges
ftp access
.
.

Hi Jim,

As I'm sure you're already aware, one of our filers suffered a hardware failure last week. That led to some unfortunate downtime and deferred e-mail delivery for a small percentage of our customers.

Sites and email have since been restored to working order, but if you're still encountering difficulty with any of our services, I'd like to know more.

Please send me a private message if you'd like, and I'll be glad to take a closer look at your account personally to ensure that you're all taken care of.

Thanks!