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  1. #1

    * Inmotionhosting 1 year+ review (On the way out) or "staying in motion"

    As I am moving from inmotionhosting this week I decided to do a search here for inmotionhosting to see if any others have had a similar experience with them.
    I was going to add to these two threads
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...nmotionhosting
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...nmotionhosting
    but I decided to start my own thread.

    I moved from Hostgator (HG) VPS to inmotionhosting (IMH) at the beginning of April 2012 due to all the reviews online which, strangely seemed to be front sites set up by IMH, but hey, at the time I was desperate to get my site back up and online and I was grasping at straws.

    At the time I had never used PuTTY or knew any SSH commands (HG took care of everything for me) but I learned it because of how long they took to transfer the accounts (thank goodness for wget). Within a week of transferring, the east coast data center experienced 2 outages within 2 weeks as documented on their site:

    http://www.inmotionhosting.com/suppo...st-data-center
    Also, I now live in another country for school and when they finally did get their datacenter up, traceroutes/pings went through europe and still would not resolve my site for an additional week or so unless I was on a VPN like Hotspot Shield. Eventually that issue resolved itself when they took care of whatever loose ends the outage caused.

    I left HG due to my site being down and it looked like I was moving out of the frying pan into the fire.
    The "free transfer" that I had to do myself was a marked contrast to what I had experienced with generally excellent support at HG (except towards the end where HG disabled my site, changed login information on my VPS without notifying me and tried to hold my data hostage for a few days...but that's another review and backstory). IMH's managed VPS in comparison was definitely do-it-yourself/abandonment. HG would help with everything. IMH would help with nothing. By the time they would get around to your support ticket, you've googled it and figured out how to do it yourself.

    The main issues that I had with IMH, however, was not the initial downtime (after that initial outage, I haven't had appreciable issues with site resolution/downtime for the rest of the year+ other than over the past 2 months their IMAP/POP3 failing on 2 separate occasions leaving my usually very patient and understanding clients calling me at all hours about lost emails and business) or the lack of tech support. On those fronts, I basically looked at it as an unmanaged VPS and used it as an opportunity to familiarize myself with SSH, php configuration, cronjobs. The main issues I had with IMH were the bait and switch and the hard upsell.

    On their site right now, you'd initially think their prices are great: http://www.inmotionhosting.com/vps-hosting
    I was on the VPS-2000 plan which is currently advertised at $49.99. However that price is only available if you pay 12 months in advance. Then, much like a sub-prime loan, at the end of some random time they jack the price up. I was paying $89.99 for that same plan until I called and complained and they moved it down to $79.99 saying that the rates advertised on the site are only for new customers (should I cancel my VPS and start over as a new customer?). That's the bait and switch. On the site now, they say the initial price is good for 12 months but I had been paying $89.99 since forever (I just crossed the 12 month threshold with them last month) and just on a whim decided to complain when I noticed the prices they were advertising now after they (FINALLY) updated their own website's much needed redesign.

    The hard upsell is that with all their specs, they can never handle a relatively small fish which is my flagship site. On that particular site I get on average 20,000 unique visitors a month for a site dedicated to a very niche industry. Other sites may get 20-50 visitors in a day. When I read through other people here on WHT saying they're on such-and-such company's VPS and get 10,000 uniques a day with no issues whatsoever, I, of course, suffer VPS envy. How come IMH can't handle that spread across a month without swearing I'm using so much resources on the Apple IIe they're using to host my VPS??? I'd go for 2 months with no problem then with no changes in configuration, apparently someone's children's tuition was due and they'd tell me that I have to upgrade to dedicated. We'd discuss it for a while and eventually I'd stay right where I was on VPS-2000 with my resource usage being acceptable after all (I'd have to tweak robots.txt or implement a comet service or CDN before they'd back off). At least for another 3 months. Then, apparently, again, I'd just HAVE to upgrade to dedicated. Well, I actually considered it towards the end until I was reminded of the bait and switch. I said, well, their bottom dedicated is only $119.99...that's only $40 above what I'm paying now. Maybe I'll bite the bullet and do it. Well, as I was to the point of signing up, lo and behold, that's only if you pay 12 months in advance! $1439.88 to lock into a company that is at best lackluster and mediocre and at worst deceptive and duplicitous. After about 6 or so hard upsell pitches, this last one was finally apparently non-negotiable (although traffic to my site is at its lowest point in months (17,000 uniques)). Was I being hit by the infamous googlebot? Who knows? IMH would only be willing to even investigate what was causing the phantom resource usage AFTER I threw more hardware and money at the issue on dedicated.

    Well, I came here to WHT to find alternatives and I was in a toss-up between LiquidWeb which hosts WHT, Knownhost and MediaTemple. Because of how you can piecemeal plans together and also because of the low cost of additional IPs ($1 and I need several for SSL on clients' ecommerce sites) I figured this one will support my growth as necessary rather than having to be gangstered into hard upsells. The KH reviews seem to be predominantly positive and not in the IMH way which all seem to be written by IMH employees with award graphics that they seem to create themselves using Microsoft Photodraw v1.

    On the positive side, I've announced my exit from IMH and although they won't pro-rate me for the month I've already paid for (as that would be too much like doing what's right), unlike HG they've agreed to keep my amazingly resource intensive VPS/sites up until the transfer process is completed. By the way, my issue with HG had nothing to do with resource usage but that's another review and backstory. My resource usage problem didn't start until I signed on with IMH whose tech support department is actually their sales/upsell department where the resolution to any and every issue is to upgrade to a dedicated server. It gets to the point where you don't even want to send a support ticket about the status of a backup because the way to get a backup is, apparently, to upgrade to dedicated.

    In the meantime, I'm giving KH a try. Will this be another year of lackluster/non-existent support? Bait-and-switch? Hard upsells? Who knows, but the transfer over will be the litmus test. In the meantime, I have my WinSCP and PuTTY at the ready just in case.

    I never post reviews, but I actually got into this one as I started writing it. Maybe I'll do it more often. Hopefully others will find this helpful and know what they're getting into when they get into business with IMH. KH, here I come!
    Last edited by akyeame; 05-21-2013 at 07:02 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    1,922
    Welcome to KnownHost. We'll take good care of you. Anything you need let us know.
    KnownHost Managed VPS Specialists
    Toll Free: (866)-332-9894
    Fully Managed VPS, Wordpress, Cloud Servers, and Dedicated Servers

  3. #3
    I appreciate the warm welcome! A review of KH is coming soon, but just suffice it to say that there is a stark contrast that can be quantified in everything from backup times to CPU usage to software versions, etc. According to one of my forum admins

    So far, we should've moved the site along time ago ;-)
    I may wait til the 1 month mark to do my comprehensive KH review but so far everything is overwhelmingly positive!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Posts
    1,339
    Wow. Quit the novel there. Glad you seem to have arrived at a place you can stay (chalk up another one to KH).
    Quote Originally Posted by akyeame View Post
    I may wait til the 1 month mark to do my comprehensive KH review but so far everything is overwhelmingly positive!
    Month one would be an initial review, imho. Uptime is a fairly important part of a review and you can't get a long-term feel for it in just a month. I'm sure we'd a appreciate an update at perhaps month 3 or 6, then a comprehensive at year 1. But however you'd like to contribute, I know we'd all appreciate the reference points!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
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    IMH is fine for share, but it's not a VPS host. For them, VPS is a "me too" offering.
    Always go with somebody that specializes in VPS, such as Knownhost.

    Not all hosts are good/competent in all areas.
    || Need a good host?
    || See my Suggested Hosts List || Editorial: EIG/Site5/Arvixe/Hostgator Alternatives
    ||

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    1,922
    Quote Originally Posted by akyeame View Post
    I appreciate the warm welcome! A review of KH is coming soon, but just suffice it to say that there is a stark contrast that can be quantified in everything from backup times to CPU usage to software versions, etc. According to one of my forum admins



    I may wait til the 1 month mark to do my comprehensive KH review but so far everything is overwhelmingly positive!
    That's what we like to hear here at KnownHost. We strive to be the best possible. Glad your VPS is going well thus far!!
    KnownHost Managed VPS Specialists
    Toll Free: (866)-332-9894
    Fully Managed VPS, Wordpress, Cloud Servers, and Dedicated Servers

  7. #7
    Hello akyeame!

    I'm James R from the InMotion Hosting Customer Community team. I am really sad to hear about your bad experience at InMotion. Thank you for bringing this to our attention as we want to hear when we do good as well as when we fail. We take this seriously and are working to fix issues like this when they come to our attention.

    When we first looked at this post we thought it was a spam technique by a hosting company to defame our reputation. We are a Dedicated and VPS hosting provider not just a shared hosting service. Unfortunately, we do not manage VPS and Dedicated servers for the customer beyond normal server functions with our standard tech support. With that said, we do offer a service to remedy the upgrade issue you dealt with.

    We do have a Managed hosting service which helps customers fix issues with their server. The Managed Hosting Support is there for problematic issues that the customer is not able to fix. We implemented this recently so you may not have had the opportunity at the time to take advantage of our Managed Hosting Service. The Managed Hosting Team helps customers fix their server with the intent to prevent server moves and upgrades.

    As for the "Bait and Switch" you mentioned, we have a "Coupon" or discount for those who initially sign up for hosting. Our website expressly states that in the sign up area of our website. Sorry this was not visible to you. This is a common Hosting standard to offer discounts. For example, hosting companies will offer discounts by signing up through CNET, Affiliate referrals and other globally accepted promotions of their services. Getting a coupon doesn't guarantee that price for the rest of the hosting account life. Our billing support can issue recurring customer coupons. Billing would need to be contacted for that.

    For example, if you buy orange juice with a coupon, the orange juice will be less money at that time. If you go back and buy the orange juice without a coupon you will have to pay the full price, regardless if you are a repeat customer of the store you get the orange juice at. Your current host, KnownHost, also has a coupon option when initially signing up that makes your initial sign up cheaper. The difference between InMotion and KnownHost is we give you the coupon upfront instead of making you find one online.

    As for the prices being fixed Monthly, Semi Annual and Yearly, this is set to guarantee the service. This is similar to a cable company that offers discounted packages for year that reverts to a different and typically higher price when the discount period expires.. This is a global business standard that service based companies use. We understand you need to have your business running and hope your business is successful. I wish I had more details as to what exactly happened with your server that required you to upgrade. We thank you for your feedback and wish you the best of success with your business.
    Best regards,
    James R
    InMotion Hosting

  8. #8
    Hello james-r,
    The only things that defame IMH are the bait and switch tactics that dozens of your former customers have posted here. Another issue is the hard upsell department disguised as tech support. Any IMH customers currently stuck in the quagmire of their services should run, not walk, to KnownHost. It's like night and day. James-r, I'd recommend that you, as an IMH employee, go create a VPS there as a business expense to experience a legitimate business model not based on scams like your bait and switch and your upsell/tech support. Then, take your findings to your superiors. If you're not fired for suggesting that they become ethical, the end result will be that the company actually becomes decent and won't have to worry sending employees as spin doctors to WHT to try to cover up for their absolutely horrid business practices.

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