Quoted from above:
"This person simply does not know what a VPS is, what she bought, or how web sites work. As she said in her post - we immediately offered her a refund when we realized she was a novice, to no avail."
Exactly! I have no experience whatsoever and have never hidden that fact. You are missing the point. Why then, on 3 separate occasions, did you tell me to sign up even after I told you that I have no clue what to do? That is the point! You should have recommended me to do something else or at least warn me that I would need to install some code and know a little bit about servers and linux. The whole reason I chatted with you at least 3 times before signing up is that I wanted to make sure that your company understands that I do not know how to set up a server! No programming knowledge, nothing! I wanted to make sure that when I sign up for your service, that you could have my site online, working, exactly how I have it on my localhost. Do you understand yet? You should not have kept saying, sign up and someone will help you. You should have told me in the begining that perhaps your vps package is not suitable for an inexperience person. That would have been the truthful answer and could have prevented all of this, wouldn't you say?
And if you read my first post above, I said, AFTER I signed up, I get told that I should have some experience with linux. AFTER, not before. AFTER. And AFTER I sign up, is when I also found out that your 'Always Included' 24/7/365 live tech support, is not 'Always Included' for the little guys starting off with a $75/month vps package. As you said in the chat, 'people on a $20/month vps package should not expect 24 hours service. That's rather arrogant of you to say. So the little guys aren't important to your company because they don't spend the big dollars? Nice imagine to impress upon your clients. Then why do you have 'always included 24/7/365 live tech support' on your vps info page? That is false advertising and misleading.
Your site specifically says that you can build a custom VPS or managed server tuned specifically for a clustered Drupal environment. Which is another reason why I chose you as it leads me to believe that you have a lot of experience with clients who use Drupal. Should I not have thought that? My site is just a standard Drupal install with some additional Drupal modules. No special, custom, out of the ordinary files. If you are telling me now that it was such a difficult task to set up my server, then what does that say about your experience with Drupal? Your site says that you (your company) can build a custom VPS tuned for Drupal. It doesn't say, clients will have to do it themselves. So don't make it seem like you put in so much effort just to help me, when it is something you say your company can do and is part of the setup process when a client subscribes to your hosting service.
And what are you referring to here? "Demanding more help configuring her web app installation, custom Drupal modules, and additional development help" Please give examples.
I will recap step by step what happened so it is easier for you to read and hopefully comprehend:
1) After making absolutely sure during chat, that you are aware that I have no knowledge of servers, linux or how to get my site online, you assure me that after I sign up, someone will help me. So I did.
2) Thursday night the engineer begins to set up my server. He was very nice and even asked what version of phpmyadmin I was using. Unfortunately after his last correspendence of the evening, I was left with a site that was not working, and I had no access to my files that were now on the server.
3) I emailed him and asked what the password was for. No reply, as he had probably gone home for the evening. I try the 24hr online chat, no reply the whole evening.
4) Friday morning I find you on chat and ask if the engineer is in yet, you said yes and that I should wait for his reply.
5) After 3 hours of no reply, I find you on chat again and, now agitated that I had lost so many hours, not having access to my files, just waiting for someone to tell me where I can enter my password. (All you had to do in your password email was to say, 'to gain access to your files, download winscp and enter this password') Other companies give such instructions. Learn from this experience.
6) Having no access to my files or server, I read online that the reason my site is not working is because clean urls are not enabled on the server. I have a clean url Drupal module that is already enable on my version of the site, and works fine on my localhost, so I didn't know what that means exactly when it says it needs to be enabled on the server. As I did not have access to the server, I just repeated to you what I found online, hoping that you would understand and know what to do.
7) You finally tell me to download WinSCP. Thank you!! That's all I needed. So after that, I took matters into my own hands, now that I know how to access my files, and spent all of friday getting my site to work. Didn't ask you another question did I?
8) Tuesday is when I forwarded you the email from Verio about my dns resolving issue. Thanks to the engineer for taking care of that for me
9) Seeing on your vps page that 'always included' was a personal account manager, I was curious as to who my manager was, which is why I found you on chat that day. Then I asked you about the support service, which is when you replied that $20 vps customers should not expect 24 hours service. And of course I pointed out that it says 'always included' on your site.
10) Not wanting to argue the point with you, I closed the chat. Was curious if others had written any reviews about the service from your company. Which is when I came across this message board and thought it was a good idea to share my experience with others.
So for these 2 times that you helped me... telling me to download winscp, and then pointing my domain to the ip, you are calling me demanding? I still don't understand what custom Drupal modules and additional development help you claim that I asked you for? Care to elaborate?
For the record, I'm thankful to the engineer or engineers who helped set up my server. I am not upset with their service, they have been very polite to me. What I was upset about was the guy in chat, you, telling me to sign up, knowing I had no experience. Then after I sign up, you tell me the vps is for people with experience and then you tell me that I should't expect much support as a vps client, even though it says 24hrs on your site. Your attitude just wasn't very nice. And now with your new post, you are just making yourself look worse! Cause now you are saying the I wasn't entitled to that help, that you have gone above and beyond for me as a customer that only has a $75 vps slice. So you see, my encounters with you, not others in your company, is what has caused all this. I found a hosting company that does offer 24hour support, even for the cheap $5 shared hosting packages. And they are so nice and helpful! They have over a hundred live support staff online 24hrs, now that's service!
And this is not slander. I merely shared my experience which I have every right to do so. Do you always ask people to remove their posts when it is not to your liking and tell them you no longer want them as a client if they don't? So to answer Junior Guru, that is why I asked how to edit or delete my first post, because he said he would only keep me as a client if I remove it. I had spent all that time getting my site to work and didn't want to have wasted my time, so I messaged the help desk to help me remove it but they refused, oh well. For the company's sake I wasn't going to post a reply to Junior Guru as it does not look good that you have asked me to remove my post or else deny me service, but you chose to continue the post, and from your email the other night, have alreay chosen not to keep me as a client, so what reason do I have to keep your secret? I think you have now dug yourself a deeper hole. Your company may be great at what they do, but you need some more customer service skills. You asking me to delete my post or else deny me service is very unprofessional. I'd like to know what others think about this. Has this ever happened to anyone?
Many people will post their experiences and opinions of various hosting companies. There is nothing wrong with that, isn't that what this forum is for? The most valuable posts for a company, are the ones where people are upset. That is when you should listen and use that information to improve your company and customer service so that you may move forward and be a better company. You don't tell people to remove their posts and threaten to deny them service. Have you done this to other people as well? Is that why you told me that your company has to pay to remove the posts because you speak from experience?
So tell me, what was it that I 'unreasonably demanded'? To have my site online after I warned you multiple times that I have no clue of how to set it up online myself? I did not mislead you. You mislead me. And after you told me to download winscp, I figured out how to get the site working by myself remember? And did not ask for your help again until I needed that ip thing resolved. Was the ip thing the 'unreasonable demand' you are referring to? If so I apologize as I did not realize I should not be asking that of you with only a $75 vps package.
If you're so concerned about your company image, you should have thought twice about continuing this conversation
And since you made it clear that you do not want me as a client because of my first post, then please refund my money and cancel my account.
Thanks again to the engineer, he has still been very nice to me. I'm sorry to have wasted his efforts now by cancelling my service, but when a co-founder of the company reacts in this manner to a mere forum post, continuing to do business together just doesn't seem right.
All you had to do was acknowledge that yes, perhaps by telling me to sign up at least 3 times, knowing I lacked experience, was probably not the right thing to do and apologize for misleading me. And I would have said, no worries, the site works now, and that's all I wanted. But no, you have to insist that I either delete my post or discontinue my service and say that I asked for more help than a VPS slice customer deserved. Can you not see that you have just dug yourself an even bigger hole with your lastest post?
1) You enforced my point, that I had no experience. Yes that is correct! Which is why you should not have told me to sign up!
2) If your engineers had really spent so much time helping me on thursday and went above and beyond as you put it, and still the site was not working, then what does that say about your experience with a simple Drupal install and your claim that you can build a custom VPS or managed server tuned specifically for a clustered Drupal environment.
3) You would rather lose a customer completely then take a few minutes to help them set up a working site? The engineers had no problem, it seems you are the one who had the problem with me asking about things I don't understand. I still have no clue what custom Drupal module and additional development you are claiming that I demanded from you.
4) You said I was expecting many hours of custom application support? No, actually I expected the transition to get my site online to be a rather easy and painless process. You being a hosting company and having done this procedure hundreds of times, should not have had any trouble. All I wanted was my site to be online so I can continue working on it. I know how to use Drupal. I don't however, know how to set up a server. If I'm not mistaken, those are 2 very different things.
5) By your comments, you leave the impression that a client signed up for your vps service is not worthy of your additional help. Perhaps you can learn a thing or two from larger companies who treat all their clients in a professional manner, no matter how little they are paying.
Please don't phone me, I will not answer your call.
I would love to hear what people think after reading these posts! So please post your opinions
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