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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21

    Thumbs down SolarVPS one month review

    Hi there,

    This is my review for SolarVPS after one month. I will not be recommending this VPS host to anybody I know, or anybody on WHT.

    From the very moment before the VPS was even ordered I found the customer support rude and disrespectful. I accidentally made an incorrect order, so I decided to email SolarVPS support to cancel the order, the email I got back from them 1). They didn't even bother to greet me (say Hello, etc) which I found very disrespectful, and 2). They tried suggesting I was involved in fraudulent activity because of the address I provided.

    After my one month came to an end, I let the subscription run out only to find out that I am going to be stung with another extra months worth of payments because I didn't cancel my subscription 10 days before the bill was due (this was a mistake on my part, I admit that... but it makes me more angry).

    I have since found another VPS host, and am fairly happy with what I am getting from them.

    Regards,

    Bobbobagan

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Dallas, TX
    Posts
    4,568
    Hello Bobbobagan, per WHT rules you need to post your domain that is hosted at SolarVPS. Now, since you left, I am not sure how that would work...


    Either way, you should report the domain that was hosted at SolarVPS http://www.webhostingtalk.com/report.php?p=6281169

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21
    Hi Jacob, I was aware of this and have already reported the IP address. There is no longer any domain attached to the VPS, since I have moved VPS provider so I used the IP address instead.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Manila
    Posts
    958
    Hmm. I was a bit surprised to see this thread.

    did you have any server-related problems with them?

    Douglas of SolarVPS was friendly to me. I haven't experienced talking to their support dept co'z my server was up for the whole period of time I was there.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Dallas, TX
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    4,568
    Quote Originally Posted by sleepybear View Post
    Hmm. I was a bit surprised to see this thread.

    did you have any server-related problems with them?

    Douglas of SolarVPS was friendly to me. I haven't experienced talking to their support dept co'z my server was up for the whole period of time I was there.
    SolarVPS always fixed the problems when I had them, and there's no reason why they shouldn't of been able to fix your problem(s).


    Now, I don't see how your faults made you more angry at SolarVPS. You forgot to cancel, that's your fault. How did it make your experience w/ SolarVPS worse?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21
    Quote Originally Posted by sleepybear View Post
    Hmm. I was a bit surprised to see this thread.

    did you have any server-related problems with them?

    Douglas of SolarVPS was friendly to me. I haven't experienced talking to their support dept co'z my server was up for the whole period of time I was there.
    Douglas was the person I spoke to. The server-side of things were OK I guess, were easy to manage... but other things let me down unfortunately.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Dallas, TX
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    4,568
    Quote Originally Posted by bobbobagan View Post
    Douglas was the person I spoke to. The server-side of things were OK I guess, were easy to manage... but other things let me down unfortunately.
    What part let you down? The whole thing with no hello's? Would you be willing to paste the emails, it would be very disturbing to find out that they were rude in any way, considering how respected they are.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Manila
    Posts
    958
    What Kind of things? could you please elaborate?

    also, not greeting hello is not rude right?

    I'm okay with it. But I will be surely pissed if my provider reacts on my post in WHT with a rude and annoyed manner. LOL.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21
    @Sleepy:
    I mean everything to do with the customer service, which is the main reason I was disappointed.

    @Jacob:
    I am not at home right now, but would be happy to post them later on.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Manila
    Posts
    958
    Ah, customer service. Well, Its your choice to leave if you're not comfortable talking with your provider.

    But my experience with Solar was incredible. they are very professional and their servers were awesome.

    we will wait for your pasted emails =)

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Wall View Post
    Now, I don't see how your faults made you more angry at SolarVPS. You forgot to cancel, that's your fault. How did it make your experience w/ SolarVPS worse?
    I was planning on leaving at the end of the month whether I had been stung with this fee or not, so in some ways this does not effect my experiences with them. It just makes me angry that I have to pay more money for something I do not want to continue. I am sure you would also not like to pay for something if you were not going to use it.

  12. #12
    I'm surprised too, I've recently been through 4 hosting companies some of which are heavily promoted on these forums and personally they didn't come up to the standards I required.

    It's too early for me to write up a review, which I will do when some more time has passed, however I too have spoken with Doug and so far have found the service excellent and well up to scratch. I'm very happy with SolarVPS, maybe like some of the experiences I've had previously some hosts and customers are destined to not get along.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Singapore
    Posts
    4,685
    May I know what is the big deal about not greeting hello? If your address provided does not match your IP address, their fraud system may mark your account as high fraud risk. Fraud is very common, and of course they have to be wary about it. You should put yourself in their shoes before making such comments. You are angry at them for your own mistake for not cancelling on time, which is totally ridiculous.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Manila
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    958
    Quote Originally Posted by LaptopFreak View Post
    May I know what is the big deal about not greeting hello?
    Its an asian thing. some asians find it rude when you forgot to greet them (Hello, Hi, Goodbye. etc).

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Singapore
    Posts
    4,685
    Quote Originally Posted by sleepybear View Post
    Its an asian thing. some asians find it rude when you forgot to greet them (Hello, Hi, Goodbye. etc).
    I'm from Asia and I don't find it rude without any greetings, so do my family and friends. However, if it is on a business talk with others, it shouldn't be exempted. However, in this support case, it isn't a big deal at all.

  16. #16
    Greetings!

    I am sorry if you feel slighted in any way by our processes. It is very true that we utilize some *very* stringent anti-fraud measures. This is in order to protect both ourselves and unwitting consumers from facing a credit card/identity theft situation. Every order that we process is checked in depth for signs of fraud.

    Your original order was placed, geographically, with an address in an entirely different continent than where you were actually located. The discrepancy of 9000km led to the order being flagged as fraudulent. We do understand, however, that people sometimes relocate, and so once this was explained, we had no problem with taking a more humanistic approach to the situation, and as a show of good faith, we provisioned your order on 6/10/2009.

    I'd be glad to look into the situation more to see what has transpired here. I believe that I've found the ticket that you were referring to in your note: Sales ticket PFO-283654. Can you please verify that?

    You also mentioned support in your ticket, but I've thusfar been unable to locate any support tickets placed by you or on your behalf. Is it possible they were placed by a different email address than the one on file in your account? If you could please provide ticket ids i'd be glad to further investigate this matter and address it with SolarVPS Management.

    Please let us know and we'd be glad to look further into what has transpired here.

    Have a great weekend
    Last edited by SolarVPS|Justin; 07-11-2009 at 08:34 AM. Reason: Cleaning up wording and grammar a bit
    Justin O'Leary :: Solar VPS / DedicatedNOW
    Tel: (201) 255-8050 Toll Free: (800) 799-1713

    www.solarvps.com : sales@solarvps.com
    New Jersey & Los Angeles Unmanaged Linux & Windows Virtual Private Servers

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    21
    I understand that you have anti-fraud measures put in place, and I think that is very good. But I still do believe that if I do trigger an alarm, that I should still be treated as anybody else.

    @Laptop Freak:
    No, I have already explained that I am not angry at SolarVPS for this, as it is my mistake for not fully understanding. I am trying to say it makes me feel more angry (not towards SolarVPS directly) but because I have to pay an extra fee I do not wish to pay. I think I am more trying to get the point across to be careful of any fees hosts may em-place on you, as a customer. I also have every right to feel disrespected.

    @metallica48423: I will reply to a ticket in my email very soon (I can't remeber if I am dealing with you directly).

    Anyway, some of you people requested the original emails, so here they are (note: I have removed IP address & name for obvious reasons).

    OK, so it goes like this. I first made the incorrect order (as I mentioned in the OP). I then sent them an email to ask them to cancel it, and made a second order:
    Quote Originally Posted by First email
    Hi there,

    I incorrectly made this order. Please cancel it.

    Kind regards,

    <name>
    I then got this email:
    Quote Originally Posted by Reply to first email
    Actually, I think we'll cancel both of them.

    Host <IP ADDRESS> is located in Malaysia instead of New Zealand
    Estimated distance from IP Address to CC Billing Address: 9000 km
    Country Match No
    IP Country Code MY
    High Risk Country No
    Free E-mail Provider Yes
    Anonymous Proxy No
    Fraud Score (0 low risk, 10 high risk) 7.50

    Douglas Hazard
    Vice President, Sales
    Raising the standard on VPS hosting daily!
    And that email is basically what has set me off. No information about what has happened, only that both of my orders were canceled. So I emailed them back:
    Quote Originally Posted by Reply to his reply
    Actually I am a paying customer, and I deserve some respect.

    I have only recently moved to Malaysia, and am moving house this weekend. I decided to put my mothers address back in New Zealand. I also have no proof of address for Malaysia, so New Zealand is my best choice for an address.

    <Name>
    Then Douglas's reply (notice he greets me this time, yay!):
    Greetings.

    > Actually I am a paying customer, and I deserve some respect.
    If you're a current customer, kindly provide your account information. Otherwise (with all due respect intended) there wasn't anything disrespectful about my last reply.

    > I have only recently moved to Malaysia, and am moving house this weekend. I decided to put my mothers address (where I
    > previously lived) back in New Zealand. I also have no proof of address for Malaysia, so New Zealand is my best choice for an
    > address.
    When you get settled and get everything switched over to your new address, you are welcome to re-sign up for services. There would be very few, if any, legitimate VPS providers that would move forward with your order due to the distance and other factors involved.

    Kind regards,

    Douglas Hazard
    Vice President, Sales
    Raising the standard on VPS hosting daily!
    Still, he did not bother to apologize in his email. All I wish is for SolarVPS to understand that people should be treated in the same way, and hopefully change their ways when talking with potential clients.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by bobbobagan View Post
    Still, he did not bother to apologize in his email. All I wish is for SolarVPS to understand that people should be treated in the same way, and hopefully change their ways when talking with potential clients.
    Being an online service provider, we frequently deal with lots of fraudulent orders, in fact sometimes more fraud orders then actually signups. Online service providers have to take strict stances regarding fraud. If you are in one country and you use a billing address for another country, this is a big no/no, you shouldn't do that. That automatically gets your order rejected by most providers. That right there is one of the biggest strikes to take out someone trying to commit fraud. They use a billing address that is no where near their current location. Of course this can be gotten around, however most people committing fraud aren't that smart


    You orders from another country then what your billing address was.
    Your order was marked as fraud.
    You was not greeted once during one of your conversations.
    You "let your subscription run out"
    You was charged for a second month for not canceling...

    Seems like that about wraps it up.

    Move along.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
    Posts
    3,657
    I have been a customer of SolarVPS for many months and have nothing but good things to say about them. I don't request support that often, but when I do, everything's taking care of promptly and to my satisfaction.

    I'm sorry to hear that you have not had a similar experience with SolarVPS.

    As for their cancelation policy, most providers won't just let you "let a subscription expire." And to be honest, it's kind of rude not to let a provider know that you wish to cancel.

    Their cancelation policy is clearly noted in their TOS and it's not their fault (as you already admitted) that you didn't cancel within their policy and are being charged for a second month.

    I wish you all the best with your new provider.
    hostingDifferent---We're hostingDifferent.™
    Premium, Managed and DIY WordPress hosting DONE RIGHT.
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  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784
    I've used SolarVPS as well for the last year on a side project of mine, haven't been happier.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    MO
    Posts
    629
    Edit: Nevermind. I totally misread their response.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Dallas, TX
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    Quote Originally Posted by subigo View Post
    If I had a nickel for every customer that took offense to be marked as fraud by maxmind, well, I'd have a lot of nickels. With that said, they probably could have at least let you sign up and then monitored what you were doing for a while. Most fraudsters/spammers aren't going to bother e-mailing support and giving a story like that, they'd just move on to the next target.
    Sadly, I just recently got owned by believing the story that they were on vacation. 3 weeks later, chargedback.

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    MO
    Posts
    629
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Wall View Post
    Sadly, I just recently got owned by believing the story that they were on vacation. 3 weeks later, chargedback.
    You quoted me before I had a chance to edit... I missed the "Malaysia" part, lol. No way on Earth that one would get approved, I don't care what the story is.

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