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  1. #1
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    Exclamation Review: Midphase, Autica, Thrillhost - Avoid at all costs

    I noticed some people asking in other threads about Midphase, and I thought I would put in a note about my experience. If I had it to do all over again, I would avoid them like the plague. They work under serveral different company names, including Autica.

    I've been reselling there for over a year and it's been nothing but headaches. Anything new I have goes somewhere else, and I'm slowly migrating away from them and encouraging others to do so.

    Reasons:

    In Dec. of 2004 they had a well-publicized week+ downtime for a major server that caused headaches and problems for many resellers. No refunds were ever given to me, as far as I can tell, and refunds were only given to people who screamed for them. Certainly no proactive, forward looking credits were ever given to my knowledge. After this major screwup, shortly there after they began to migrate people's hosting accounts to other servers with no prior notification given. What wound up happening was that changes made on server A never made it to server B because accounts were moved from A to B before you made modifications to them. I had entire new accounts that were put online for at least a couple of weeks before anyone could figure out why they weren't showing up. Their response? "Oh...we moved your reseller account. Sorry." I can't even begin to tell you the headaches this caused and the refunds I had to give. I lost more money in Dec/Jan than I had made the previous 4 months in hosting, all due to Midphase.

    Their support is erratic at best, and it is impossible to reach them by telephone. Hold times are long, and once you reach a tech support person, all they tell you is to deal with it online, because their support staff is overseas. Major red flag for me.

    And finally, with only a couple paying clients of mine still on Midphase, about 2 weeks ago they pulled the server migration trick again. And AGAIN with no notice. This time they moved my reseller account from server B to C, and apparently even their tech support didn't notice this problem. It wasn't until I found that there were email problems with a client that I was told, and it took 24 hours of back and forth emailing with tech support before they even figured out that the accounts had been moved to another server. To compound the problems, old copies of the clients accounts are still live on the old servers. Some of my clients were logging into old IP addresses instead of domains, and making changes that had to be updated later, wasting tons of time for both me and my clients. No refunds or credits have been promised, and I certainly don't expect them at this point.

    Finally, when I tried to post on their interanl boards about these problems, my threads were repeatedly deleted and covered up. They obviously don't want any of their other resellers to know about this, and are going to great lengths to silence people.

    Well, here's my notice and I'll keep people informed of what's going on.

    Bottom line is, Midphase is a terrible company, that while they do some good on small things, none of this matters when big things go wrong and they cover it up.

    If anyone has questions, I'm happy to answer them.

    Avoid Midphase, Autica, Thrillhost and all their brands like the plage. I have no critical clients hosted there anymore.

    Thanks for listening,
    Bob
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  2. #2
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    Apr 2004
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    Well, it's official.

    Looks like Midphase disabled my account to post on their board a few minutes ago.

    This is a sad, sad day for these guys. They obviously don't want anyone to hear anything but good news.

    Nice job, Dan and Zak. Nice job.
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  3. #3
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    Originally posted by Bo3b
    Well, it's official.

    Looks like Midphase disabled my account to post on their board a few minutes ago.

    This is a sad, sad day for these guys. They obviously don't want anyone to hear anything but good news.

    Nice job, Dan and Zak. Nice job.
    Disabled your account??? Are you referring to your hosting account or some other account?
    <<snipped>><<snipped>>
    why?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
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    I believe he's referring to the midphase's support board. There is a banned Bo3b user there.

  5. #5
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    Somewhere near Chicago
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    Originally posted by ldcdc
    I believe he's referring to the midphase's support board. There is a banned Bo3b user there.
    Yes....it's the support board, not my hosting account. Believe me, I checked that immediately after. I can't post, nor read from that account.

    There are many other threads that are similar in nature to the ones that I was posting, so I'm not sure what I did to get banned.

    Actually, I just tried to go there anonymously to post a few links from the Reseller forum to display here, but I'm timing out. I wonder if they banned my IP as well?
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  6. #6
    I've been reselling there for over a year and it's been nothing but headaches.
    You loved us last May!- http://forum3.midphasetalk.com/showt...highlight=Bo3b

    Anyway, I'm not sure what your domain is, so I can't comment specifically on your issues. If you give that to me, I'll do my best in looking up what problems you had. I assume you were on Esc12, which as everyone knows had a major problem last December. We did offer refunds for that, but it's very possible that an account may have been missed.

    Shoot over your domain name, and I'll look into it for you.

    Thanks!

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  7. #7
    You were banned from the forums for *a lot* of cussing. We won't allow that on the forums.

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  8. #8
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    Originally posted by midPhase-Zak
    You loved us last May!- http://forum3.midphasetalk.com/showt...highlight=Bo3b
    My 2c

    Retaining a old customer is more difficult than getting a new customer...

    One year is a long time, also this might be one off case and can't be generalized for overall operations.

    Any way, nice and interesting board you have Zak!
    <<snipped>><<snipped>>
    why?

  9. #9
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    Somewhere near Chicago
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    Originally posted by midPhase-Zak
    You were banned from the forums for *a lot* of cussing. We won't allow that on the forums.

    Zak

    Sorry Zak...not true. I kept the cussing in my support tickets which were private. The only curse I used over this discussion in the public forums was the word "sucks" as in the title of my post "This Company Sucks."

    I realize that there was a few choice words in the posts over the ESC12 incident last December, but those posts are still on the boards, along with everyone elses...I wonder why I wasn't banned then if you have this policy about 4-letter words. Plus, those posts were made in frustration over the lack of communication from your company over the incident. If you didn't like my language, you could have simply modded the post, and sent me an email to ask me to tone it down.

    The post I appear to be banned for was the one that linked to this thread, AFTER the original two complaints were deleted, aka covered up.

    But..that's not really the point. Let me see if I can summarize some of Midphase's policies....

    1. It's OK for you to move my accounts, as well as those of other resellers WITHOUT NOTICE, causing problems for our customers and forcing us to refund money with no compensation or credit from Midphase, unless we beg for it....but it's not ok to "cuss on the boards."

    2. It's OK for you to move my accounts, as well as those of other resellers WITHOUT NOTICE - a SECOND time, causing problems for our customers and forcing us to refund money with no compensation or credit from Midphase, unless we beg for it....but it's not ok to "cuss on the boards." (much evidence to begging for credits can be found here on WHT with a simple search)

    3. It's OK for you to not inform your techs of said moves, to compound the problems, causing the resolution of simple email problems to take 24 hours or longer...but it's not ok to "cuss on the boards."

    4. It's OK for you to delete posts that criticize your service on your internal boards to leave a false impression of security and well being with your resellers to make them think everything with Midphase is all snuggles and love...but it's not ok to "cuss on the boards."

    And yes, Zak...I did "love you last May"...but that was a year ago before you started costing me money. I think I've been more than a patient customer and had recommended you to many people. I even sent the occassional email to support thanking them for helping me when I needed it most. That all seemed to evaporate late last summer.

    It's really sad to see that the only way you can keep your customer base at this point is to censor them.

    Bo3b aka "The Board Cusser"
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  10. #10
    Bob, or "the board cusser"- if you'll give me your domain name, I'll look into this.

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  11. #11
    And the "cussing" threads were removed. I'm sure if someone wants to spend time reading through it, you'll find more. Esc12 had issues, obviously, and we did our best to get through it as fast as possible. I'm sure every other host will agree that Cpanel's restore function is terribly slow, so it was a lot of waiting. However, when the server went down, we had an admin immediately start working on it. I spent a lot of time at the DC myself, but again- it was a lot of waiting on our part, and of course on the customers affected.

    If we ever move a customers site it's because we have to. We don't have an option, and we do email the address stored in Cpanel, which is why we urge customers to keep an up to date address in cpanel. We also search our billing system with the primary domain, and email that address. If we can't find you by your domain name in our billing system, and you don't have an email address in Cpanel, we can't notify you.

    You obviously aren't happy with the service, so I do apologize for that. I'm sure that once I am able to look into this a bit more (after you give me your domain), I'll find something that we could have done differently, and we'll make the appropriate changes. Live and learn.

    However, to come in and act as if we've been a terrible host since you've been hosting with us is a bit harsh, and according to your post on our forums it's also not true. In any case, looking forward to the domain, so I can find out exactly what went wrong, if anything, and we can get this resolved.

    Thanks

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  12. #12
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    Originally posted by midPhase-Zak
    And the "cussing" threads were removed. I'm sure if someone wants to spend time reading through it, you'll find more.
    So, just to clarify...what cuss word did I use this week on the board besides the word "sucks"? I fully admit to cursing you out in private support messages, and I know of at least one post in the old ESC12 thread where I used the "f" word. I'm just curious, still, about removing threads that have NO "cussing" that merely point out to other customers that there's a problem.

    Esc12 had issues, obviously, and we did our best to get through it as fast as possible. I'm sure every other host will agree that Cpanel's restore function is terribly slow, so it was a lot of waiting. However, when the server went down, we had an admin immediately start working on it. I spent a lot of time at the DC myself, but again- it was a lot of waiting on our part, and of course on the customers affected.
    As a customer, I really dont care how long it takes for Cpanel to work. I just care that my sites are up. Tell me this...why weren't our sites just moved from a backup to a new box immediately during that incident instead of us having to wait days and days and days for a restore to the old box?

    If we ever move a customers site it's because we have to. We don't have an option, and we do email the address stored in Cpanel, which is why we urge customers to keep an up to date address in cpanel. We also search our billing system with the primary domain, and email that address. If we can't find you by your domain name in our billing system, and you don't have an email address in Cpanel, we can't notify you.
    Zak...that can't possibly be true. I'm not going to flat out call you a liar, but something's not jiving here. On most of my domains, I use my own email address as the default because I manage most of the sites for my clients. Right now, the only sites I have hosted with you are sites I own personally, save one. Let's assume that not all of them have an email address associated with them, and that only my primary has one...that I have screwed up with that. So...as I search my email, including junk mail....I find not one single notification of this most recent move sent to me. Not one. And let's not forget, that not only did you not notify me, but your tech knew nothing about it either.

    You obviously aren't happy with the service, so I do apologize for that. I'm sure that once I am able to look into this a bit more (after you give me your domain), I'll find something that we could have done differently, and we'll make the appropriate changes. Live and learn.
    I'm sending it to you after I post this

    However, to come in and act as if we've been a terrible host since you've been hosting with us is a bit harsh, and according to your post on our forums it's also not true.
    True. If you read my post above, I said things for me went sour late last summer. I had about 4 months of good service. I already said that.

    In any case, looking forward to the domain, so I can find out exactly what went wrong, if anything, and we can get this resolved.

    Thanks

    Zak
    Bold added for emphasis...but oh boy. I'm not even going there or I might get banned from this board as well.

    Bob aka "The Guy Who's Imagining Things"
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  13. #13
    Bob,

    All I see is that your account on the forums were suspended for cussing. A quick look in the Esc12 thread confirmed this, so I'm not sure what else may be out there.

    [As a customer, I really dont care how long it takes for Cpanel to work. I just care that my sites are up. Tell me this...why weren't our sites just moved from a backup to a new box immediately during that incident instead of us having to wait days and days and days for a restore to the old box?[/Quote]
    That wouldn't make a difference. We swapped the drive that went out, Raid didn't work as it should have, and we began restoring sites. Restoring them to a different server would have been the exact same thing. It's the restore that took forever.

    Zak...that can't possibly be true. I'm not going to flat out call you a liar, but something's not jiving here. On most of my domains, I use my own email address as the default because I manage most of the sites for my clients. Right now, the only sites I have hosted with you are sites I own personally, save one. Let's assume that not all of them have an email address associated with them, and that only my primary has one...that I have screwed up with that. So...as I search my email, including junk mail....I find not one single notification of this most recent move sent to me. Not one. And let's not forget, that not only did you not notify me, but your tech knew nothing about it either.
    That's our policy. I can't confirm that we did this correctly, or we didn't until you give me your domain name. We have a number of employees, and mistakes can happen. My job is to look into it further, and go to the employee that made the mistake- IF a mistake was made in not following our policy.

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  14. #14
    Join Date
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    Originally posted by midPhase-Zak
    Bob,

    All I see is that your account on the forums were suspended for cussing. A quick look in the Esc12 thread confirmed this, so I'm not sure what else may be out there.
    Zak...you're still not answering my questions here. Why were my posts that had no cussing removed? It still seems to me that you removed my posts for criticizing your service in public. Second, why did it take you almost 4 and a half months to ban me for cussing over the ESC12 incident? Seems pretty convenient that the minute I try to go public with something in your forum, you dig up my post with the "f" word from a few months ago to ban me.

    [As a customer, I really dont care how long it takes for Cpanel to work. I just care that my sites are up. Tell me this...why weren't our sites just moved from a backup to a new box immediately during that incident instead of us having to wait days and days and days for a restore to the old box?
    That wouldn't make a difference. We swapped the drive that went out, Raid didn't work as it should have, and we began restoring sites. Restoring them to a different server would have been the exact same thing. It's the restore that took forever.
    Fine. Whatever...I'm already out way more money than I paid you people, so there's no point in beating a dead horse on this one.


    That's our policy. I can't confirm that we did this correctly, or we didn't until you give me your domain name. We have a number of employees, and mistakes can happen. My job is to look into it further, and go to the employee that made the mistake- IF a mistake was made in not following our policy.

    Zak [/B]
    Again, fine, but I'm still not finding any notification from this past move from ESC38 to ESC51, or from the previous incident where you moved us from ESC12 to ESC38. Did you remove the posts on your board about the other people who didn't get notices either?
    Watch out for me. I'll "cuss" on your board...so just ban me now.

  15. #15
    Bob,

    When our guys notify customers of a move, they are always supposed to make a comment in their billing account. I don't see a comment on yours, so that does suggest that a notification wasn't sent out. The reason for the move was to lighten the load on that server, so some accounts were moved. Regardless, a notification should have been sent, and it's our policy for that to be done- I apologize for that, and will make sure that in the future this is always done when it's possible to do so in advance.

    Thanks

    Zak
    CEO of SingleHop

  16. #16
    I am glad the word on MidPhase is getting out. I am an unhappy customer whoo recently parted with them with lots of hard feelings.

    I am glad I am through with them. I let them choke with my money they HAVEN'T EARNED from me.


    If interested, find my other posts about their reliability problems and customer attitude.

    One word: STAY AWAY from MIDPHASE or be sorry!!

    P.S. I see they are quick in pouring <...> over critical posts and people here (attitude, remember?) so here's my usual disclaimer: Whatever they tell you in response to this post is BS. I am the real customer with real experience with them. They are just a bunch of <........>.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    1,135
    We host a lot of sites -- and we try to keep everyone happy. Unfortunatly, some
    people can't be kept happy and they end up here posting... Happy customers are
    less likely to comment. Be your own judge, but the same group of people keep
    posting negativly.
    ---
    Dan Ushman
    Co-founder & CMO
    SingleHop, Inc.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
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    Big Apple (I Love NY)
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    Except for the initial post, and maybe a brief explaination by a midphase guy after they figure out who you are Bo3b, this seems like a conversation that can be held in private.

    Side note: It is very important to keep in mind disgruntle customers are 5x more likely to voice their opinions/experiences than satisfied customers.
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  19. #19
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
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    Canada
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    I used Midphase for about two months, but that was far too long. I had so many problems with downtime, but what concerned me the most was the old favourite trick of moving or deleting threads that dared to say anything bad about MP. No cussing, just a general poor review generally ended up in a forum that the public cannot see, or was deleted. Because I complained about this practise my forum account was closed down. Never once did I cuss on their forums. At the time, the phone support was truly awful, regularly ringing off the hook, or you was put on hold to be finally disconnected. The old excuse was the phone system is being upgraded.

    Whether things have improved now I do not know.

    Oh well, that`s all in the past thankfully

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