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  1. #1
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    LaneHost - Worst Hosting I've Ever Experienced

    LaneHost - The Worst Hosting Company ... PERIOD

    What can I say good about LaneHost?

    Not a whole lot! The most positive sentence I can come up with that would include LaneHost is - I am NO LONGER a customer.

    What's there to like about a company when you consider the following characteristics:

    - plagued with constant outages throughout the day
    - high server loads
    - no communication
    - incompetent support
    - unresponsive business owner (Derrick Lane)
    - deletes client data
    - does not perform backups
    - phone system that is always out of order
    - tickets that go unanswered for days

    The list goes on. Think of something that a hosting company shouldn't do as sound business practice and you can append it on the list.

    LaneHost is the WORST hosting company that I have ever dealt with. I will even go one step further - LaneHost is the WORST business I have ever dealt with.

    What's even more sad, I continued to pay for this "service" and a few of my clients suffered. Luckily I had move about 99% of my clients elsewhere after striking a deal with a local telco service provider (Aliant) to house some servers. The only domains left on the LaneHost server were clients that resisted the migration and some experimental/personal domains that I played around with.

    After signing up with LaneHost in March 2007, things were great. LaneHost was new to the block, Derrick was responsive and server performance was through the roof. My customers and clients were happy. I was happy.

    First signs of troubles came at about the 6th month, but Derrick Lane, the president and CEO worked through them, and I'm guessing it was the popularity of his packages, price points and service offerings that was causing the troubles.

    At about 14 months the ass fell out of LaneHost. There was extended outages, data loss, and Derrick Lane disappeared for days without answering any emails, phone calls etc.

    It was at thsi point when I discovered that LaneHost does not do backups. It wasn't a problem because I had my own staff doing regular backups, but discovering that your "web host" who promises to do backups was unable to restore a domain that one of the "technical support" people screwed up because "our backups are not working", or "sorry, we don't have a backup for that domain" was a bit of a shock!

    Outages plague LaneHost and when there is an outage, Derrick Lane disappears. Support is crippled because all tickets get "forwarded" to the "admin" which is apparently only Derrick Lane.

    Before LaneHost's latest outage I had days before switched the remaining clients to another host or to our own servers and to a reseller account I purchased from InnoHosting. When reading that LaneHost had gone down again, I was so glad that I had transferred all the accounts.

    Now I have to go through the hassles of trying to cancel my account so my credit card doesn't get charged like other customers have complained about.

    My recommendation is simple:

    Avoid LaneHost and if you're a current customer, switch providers!

    I've moved some of the domains from LaneHost to InnoHosting and so far I am happy! I'll post a detailed review of them after a few months.

  2. #2
    Thanks for the review. I'm sure it will be appreciated by the users out there considering LaneHost. Sorry to hear about your troubles with them, I hope you have found the quality of web hosting your site deserves.

    Regarding the backups, is it that they don't do backups in general (which is disaster) or it was only one particular domain?
    Last edited by SkyNetHosting; 07-18-2009 at 11:38 AM.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by SkyNetHosting View Post
    Thanks for the review. I'm sure it will be appreciated by the users out there considering LaneHost. Sorry to hear about your troubles with them, I hope you have found the quality of web hosting your site deserves.

    Regarding the backups, is it that they don't do backups in general (which is disaster) or it was only one particular domain?
    They were advertising daily backups, which then switched to weekly backups. During one of their outages, they had a hard disk failure. They restored to their latest backup they had which was 4-months old.

    Their "backups" were not working, nothing in place to test backups.

    With one of my vanity domains that I was experimenting with there, they deleted files WITHOUT my permission. LaneHost support said, not a problem, provide your backup and we will restore the site. I said, use your own backup.

    The response from LaneHost was "we don't do backups" - but like I said, I had backups, and instead of restoring it on LaneHost's server, simply moved it to InnoHosting.

  4. #4
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    Not to be rude, but sounds just like "LameHost" heh

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crashus View Post
    Not to be rude, but sounds just like "LameHost" heh
    LOL!

    Never thought of that one. Should register it and do a 301-redirect to them.

    LOL!

  6. #6
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    Thank's for your review. I actually have seen the owner of LaneHost pretty active on forum's but i havent seen him around lately my self. It's sad to hear LaneHost support has went down hill from the review's i been reading on multiple forum's they have always had great review's and never had i seen so many complaint's about them. Possibly he is having a hard time managing his company him self or something but possibly need's to hire some staff to keep client's happy. Once again thank's for your review and which domain did you have hosted with them? The one in your signature?

    P.s I dont agree with you purchasing a domain to bash a host. You simply disliked the service and moved on which is great but try not to go out your way to bash them in that way. Best of luck with your new host.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by geekie246 View Post
    They were advertising daily backups, which then switched to weekly backups. During one of their outages, they had a hard disk failure. They restored to their latest backup they had which was 4-months old.

    Their "backups" were not working, nothing in place to test backups.

    With one of my vanity domains that I was experimenting with there, they deleted files WITHOUT my permission. LaneHost support said, not a problem, provide your backup and we will restore the site. I said, use your own backup.

    The response from LaneHost was "we don't do backups" - but like I said, I had backups, and instead of restoring it on LaneHost's server, simply moved it to InnoHosting.
    Sounds like the ol' WHT hack

    Well you are on a webhosting community forum after all, so I am sure you will have no problem finding a new provider. Best of luck.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by semoweb View Post
    Thank's for your review. I actually have seen the owner of LaneHost pretty active on forum's but i havent seen him around lately my self. It's sad to hear LaneHost support has went down hill from the review's i been reading on multiple forum's they have always had great review's and never had i seen so many complaint's about them. Possibly he is having a hard time managing his company him self or something but possibly need's to hire some staff to keep client's happy. Once again thank's for your review and which domain did you have hosted with them? The one in your signature?

    P.s I dont agree with you purchasing a domain to bash a host. You simply disliked the service and moved on which is great but try not to go out your way to bash them in that way. Best of luck with your new host.
    Derrick is always active in the "offers" forum but he rarely takes care of his many dissatisfied clients. A quick search on WHT reveals very few if any positive comments about this one man show.

    I concur with what the original poster said. During my stint with Latehost, tickets would often be answered with the old "we are forwarding this an admin". In plain language, we cannot deal with this or are not authorised to and when Derrick is available he can possibly help. Tough titties if Derrick is away on vacation, tending to a funeral, broken down car, sick cat and god knows how many excuses he wheeled out!

    In hindsight the clients probably have themselves to blame. The super low prices offering the world can only spell trouble. He probably is having a hard time coping with the business on his own, but then he shouldn`t be involved if he cannot find the time for it. I got the impression he was rarely active running the business as emails or phones calls to him would go unanswered for a longgg time. It seems his only business activity is running "specials" on here.

    Lol, I just remembered just over a year ago I was on their B4 server or whatever it was called. I had several tickets that were answered weeks later. In fact I had actually forgotten what my original ticket was and was already moving on. Latehost would always be getting super new hardware which would deal with the outages, slow performance etc - that particular line from them got quite boring after a while.

    I dread to think how many accounts he is squeezing on to the servers to justify the prices. The performances pretty much answers that question however!!

    I`m stunned after reading the many Latehost complaints on here, the same clients are complaining about them over a year later. Bizarre indeed!

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by magicvorlon View Post
    Derrick is always active in the "offers" forum but he rarely takes care of his many dissatisfied clients. A quick search on WHT reveals very few if any positive comments about this one man show.

    I concur with what the original poster said. During my stint with Latehost, tickets would often be answered with the old "we are forwarding this an admin". In plain language, we cannot deal with this or are not authorised to and when Derrick is available he can possibly help. Tough titties if Derrick is away on vacation, tending to a funeral, broken down car, sick cat and god knows how many excuses he wheeled out!

    In hindsight the clients probably have themselves to blame. The super low prices offering the world can only spell trouble. He probably is having a hard time coping with the business on his own, but then he shouldn`t be involved if he cannot find the time for it. I got the impression he was rarely active running the business as emails or phones calls to him would go unanswered for a longgg time. It seems his only business activity is running "specials" on here.

    Lol, I just remembered just over a year ago I was on their B4 server or whatever it was called. I had several tickets that were answered weeks later. In fact I had actually forgotten what my original ticket was and was already moving on. Latehost would always be getting super new hardware which would deal with the outages, slow performance etc - that particular line from them got quite boring after a while.

    I dread to think how many accounts he is squeezing on to the servers to justify the prices. The performances pretty much answers that question however!!

    I`m stunned after reading the many Latehost complaints on here, the same clients are complaining about them over a year later. Bizarre indeed!
    Errr....Looks like thread is about laNehost but not laTehost

    Or maybe I'm just too tired to realize that type of humour)

  10. #10
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    Humour my friend, with reference to their late ticket replies. Anyways I`m done with this, just thought I would offer my own experiences with them. I certainly cannot recommend them, folks doesn`t it make sense to pay a little more than 10 bucks a month for a peace of mind. I was paying some thing 11 bucks when I was with them, now I`m paying 16 bucks and I couldn`t be more content with my provider - two totally contrasting providers.

    Gosh just for fun I went to check their forums and see the latest. I was amazed to see a "page load error", exactly the same as when I last checked a few months ago

  11. #11
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    Oh, okay, sorry about that.

    Their site looks old-fashion and definitely not attractive. Hmmmm

    Can you post a review about your new provider at forums?

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by magicvorlon View Post
    Humour my friend, with reference to their late ticket replies. Anyways I`m done with this, just thought I would offer my own experiences with them. I certainly cannot recommend them, folks doesn`t it make sense to pay a little more than 10 bucks a month for a peace of mind. I was paying some thing 11 bucks when I was with them, now I`m paying 16 bucks and I couldn`t be more content with my provider - two totally contrasting providers.

    Gosh just for fun I went to check their forums and see the latest. I was amazed to see a "page load error", exactly the same as when I last checked a few months ago
    We moved most of our sites shortly after I wrote my last review some months back. Struck a contract with the local telco to do some co-lo and house our own servers for us - more expensive, but I can walk down the street and physically touch the equipment. The peace of mind that offered was worth the added expenses and that move took care of 99% of our clients.

    Your references to Derrick's many excuses is like you were reading my mind.

    He has indicated to me a few times that he had "9" employees, and several admins. Last time he said he had "4" admins that worked on the problems.

    I accept full responsibility for those few clients that remained on this reseller account and I've compensated those clients accordingly. The are local to my area, and I have explained the situation during each of the outages experienced.

    Too bad that Derrick / LaneHost are not the same.

  13. #13
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    I left Lanehost just over a year ago for all of the above exact same reasons. I had good communication with Derrick, and he even gave me his personal cell phone... However, despite constant promises of improvement, the service continued to decline.

    I'm not sure what happened with Derrick, as he seemed to really care about his business; however when things start breaking, he and his "support staff" always mysteriously disappear.

    I wouldn't be surprised if his 800 number is still offline (it was when we were with them last year.
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  14. #14
    Ouch sad to see a company's reputation go down the drain, sorry you had such horrible luck, goodluck in the future, thanks for the post, and hope you find the hosting provider you deserve!
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by dmdstar View Post
    I left Lanehost just over a year ago for all of the above exact same reasons. I had good communication with Derrick, and he even gave me his personal cell phone... However, despite constant promises of improvement, the service continued to decline.

    I'm not sure what happened with Derrick, as he seemed to really care about his business; however when things start breaking, he and his "support staff" always mysteriously disappear.

    I wouldn't be surprised if his 800 number is still offline (it was when we were with them last year.
    Derrick's communication as the President of LaneHost has been very sketchy at best. He must go on gigantic walk-a-abouts in the backcountry or something. He disappears as soon as there's troubles.

    The 1-800 number for LaneHost is down. The regular phone for LaneHost is down. The fax number for LaneHost is down. Derrick's cellphone never picks up, the voicemail box is full, no response to text messages, and his home number has gotten changed at least 3 times.

    Neither he or his wife answer messages on Twitter, I did at one point get a contact from a supposed "brother" who said my problems were corrected - but that email address quickly stopped functioning. Derrick Lane incongnito I am guessing.

    I've switched to InnoHosting, and have been having much better results with support tickets, performance etc. Seems good so far. I'm cautiously optimistic.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crashus View Post
    Oh, okay, sorry about that.

    Their site looks old-fashion and definitely not attractive. Hmmmm

    Can you post a review about your new provider at forums?
    I only have one reseller plan, most of my hosting is done through vps servers with Powervps and Futurehosting. I do still have a reseller plan with Scalahosting who have been superb. I actually was going to mention them last night but I could not remember their name it`s been so long since I had to contact them for anything!

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by magicvorlon View Post
    I only have one reseller plan, most of my hosting is done through vps servers with Powervps and Futurehosting. I do still have a reseller plan with Scalahosting who have been superb. I actually was going to mention them last night but I could not remember their name it`s been so long since I had to contact them for anything!
    Thanks for this info. Have a good day)

  18. #18
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    My ticket to cancel the reseller account with LaneHost is still open. I'm expecting that they will charge me for another month even though I've been trying to cancel for some time now.

    I've noticed that many of their links on their site doesn't work, Derrick has disappeared again, and now his cell phone number rings to dead air.

    If anyone hasn't left there yet - I would suggest they do. I just don't have a great feeling about this.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by geekie246 View Post
    My ticket to cancel the reseller account with LaneHost is still open. I'm expecting that they will charge me for another month even though I've been trying to cancel for some time now.

    I've noticed that many of their links on their site doesn't work, Derrick has disappeared again, and now his cell phone number rings to dead air.

    If anyone hasn't left there yet - I would suggest they do. I just don't have a great feeling about this.
    I would simply get your back up and move on and email them regarding some type of refund but most importantly make sure you cancel any payment subscriptions you have with them so it doesnt automatically take money out of what ever payment method you provided. Best of luck once again.
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  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by semoweb View Post
    I would simply get your back up and move on and email them regarding some type of refund but most importantly make sure you cancel any payment subscriptions you have with them so it doesnt automatically take money out of what ever payment method you provided. Best of luck once again.
    I have moved some time ago. But I noticed that my account is still active there, and now it's coming up to the due date for my invoice. There's no way to remove the payment details in my account which means I am expecting a charge.

    This is the type of service typical with LaneHost.

    They DO NOT provide any form of service and looks like they will continue to bill even after a cancel request has been sitting in support.

  21. #21
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    Finally - got confirmation that my account with LaneHost was closed.

    :-)

    It was like pulling teeth!

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