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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267

    Site5 Review - NOT Good

    I just signed up a few days a go to check what all this superhosting was about.

    Sign up wasn't bad it took around 5 - 6 hours, not excellent but ok seaming how they do manual checks etc.

    I sent an email to support to request SSH immediately after I got my details. I obviously expected a rapid response from their support, due to the fact they advertise and boast about the speed of their fast support.

    I waited patiently, after one hour I started to get restless, not the normal thing for me, but when a host says 15min average and I’ve waited an hour, I start to suspect something is up.

    I continue to wait, after 2hours and 30mins I get my response. Maybe I am impatient or not "understanding" things here, but 2hours 30mins is not a 15min average. Sure I don't mind if they are a bit longer, even 1 hour would have been good in my eyes. But 2 hours 30mins is not good for a company who advertises MUCH less.

    Anyway, I go to login to the control panel to see what NetAdmin 4 and my.Site5 is all about. I soon notice that the control panel is not NetAdmin 4 at all, yet I find myself with NetAdmin 3, now my faith in Site5 is slowly withering away. I log out and go looking for my.Site5.

    It took less than 5 mins to realise my.Site5 isn't there either. At this point I am no happy customer. I go to check the forums; I soon find out that NetAdmin 4 and my.site5 aren’t ready yet. Yet there were promises of it being completed by the end of the week (last week).

    Monday comes, no NetAdmin 4, no my.Site5. I decide it's time to contact someone from Site5; luckily live help was online at the time, perfect.

    I explain to the operator that the features currently advertised are not actually available yet and that what they are doing is potentially false advertising. The operator assures me that Site5 is working hard on this. I explain that I wouldn't have minded if they had of said on the signup page or somewhere on the homepage that these features aren’t ready yet, seaming how I would have had the choice of to still signup or to choose a different provider.

    Now the operator isn't happy, they start giving me attitude, they start dismissing me and repeatedly asking if I had any more "sales related issues" when I even mentioned it.

    I obviously leave the live help not a happy Site5 customer at all. I do not expect to be ignored and abused when contacting a company. I am paying them, I expect their staff to treat me in a friendly manner, I would much rather go with a host that might take longer to answer my questions, but do it in a professional friendly manner.

    Overall my experience with Site5 has gone very badly. Their support is nowhere near their advertised average, at least for me it wasn't. Their live help ops can be abusive (I know not all of them are as I have spoken to them in the past), and they are currently advertising features that aren’t yet completed/ready (false advertising).

    Will I be signing up with them again? I think not.

    Sorry for the long post, I’m sure I’ve ranted a bit too. Oh well.

    Adam

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Prince Edward Island
    Posts
    2,289

    Re: Site5 Review - NOT Good

    Originally posted by adam-pca

    I explain to the operator that the features currently advertised are not actually available yet and that what they are doing is potentially false advertising. The operator assures me that Site5 is working hard on this. I explain that I wouldn't have minded if they had of said on the signup page or somewhere on the homepage that these features aren’t ready yet, seaming how I would have had the choice of to still signup or to choose a different provider.

    Now the operator isn't happy, they start giving me attitude, they start dismissing me and repeatedly asking if I had any more "sales related issues" when I even mentioned it.
    Adam,
    Obviously there are a couple things missing here. Mind filling in the blank for us?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267

    Re: Re: Site5 Review - NOT Good

    Originally posted by jmweb
    Adam,
    Obviously there are a couple things missing here. Mind filling in the blank for us?
    Seaming how I cannot now edit the post I will post my revision here. The added text is italic. Sorry if a few areas are uncovered or gaps have been left, it's 5am, what do you expect? Feel free to post requesting further information, I am quite willing to answer any questions or provide further information.

    I explain to the operator that the features currently advertised are not actually available yet and that what they are doing is potentially false advertising. The operator assures me that Site5 is working hard on this. I explain that I wouldn't have minded if they had of said on the signup page or somewhere on the homepage that these features aren’t ready yet, seaming how I would have had the choice of to still signup or to choose a different provider. I explain to the operator that I have not recievied the features I had expected and explain again that they are advertising things that are not ready. This seamingly anoys the operator.

    Now the operator isn't happy, they start giving me attitude, they start dismissing me and repeatedly asking if I had any more "sales related issues" when I even mentioned it.


    Adam

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    9,264
    Adam,

    Do you have the livechat logs available?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267
    Originally posted by HP-David
    Adam,

    Do you have the livechat logs available?
    Sadly not. I failed to notice a way to send logs or simply didn't look hard enough.

    I do know Site5 keeps full logs of all live help conversations, so I am sure a member of Site5 staff would be able to access them. I will send a request to them right away and post the appropriate section if and when I recieve them.

    Adam

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Lisbon - Portugal - Europ
    Posts
    268
    Forgive me Adam, but I do not believe a sales person is the best choice to complain about false advertising. And I can't judge if that person was abusive or not, because I only have your side of this story. And when you started chatting with that sales representative, you were angry and impatient... That person is an employee. Her job is to sale site5 hosting. What did you expect here to do?

    I didn't understand one thing. When you sent an email to support, was site5.com still processing your order? Does the suppport response average apply only to customers? And do they define customers as someone who has received his account login details?

    I don't believe this 15 minute average (it's an average!!!) means that your problem will be solved in 15 min. It just means someone will answer your ticket with something like "I'm looking in to this".

    I do not believe site5's management can ignore this thread. So maybe they'll give us some info regarding NetAdmin 4 and my.Site5. Adam, I agree with you that it's not ok to advertise software that's not available. But I read Matt Lightner's interview to hostingtech.com and I have a positive opinion regarding site5.

    I don't believe site5 advertises a false average of support response time, because it also advertises uptime. And it's not a 99,999% uptime...
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267
    Originally posted by Eu1net
    Forgive me Adam, but I do not believe a sales person is the best choice to complain about false advertising. And I can't judge if that person was abusive or not, because I only have your side of this story. And when you started chatting with that sales representative, you were angry and impatient... That person is an employee. Her job is to sale site5 hosting. What did you expect here to do?
    Actually my conversation started on quite a nice note with my simple asking why it wasn't ready and if they had an ETA on when it would be ready. Only after I had informed them of the fact it has been promised by the end of each week for the past 3 weeks I started complaining about false advertising. Even then I feel I was pleasent and friendly about it. I didn't just go into live help and start acusing straight away.

    Originally posted by Eu1net
    I didn't understand one thing. When you sent an email to support, was site5.com still processing your order? Does the suppport response average apply only to customers? And do they define customers as someone who has received his account login details?
    No when I sent my email to support I was fully signed up and activated. I could use my account fine at this point. I was just emailing to have the extra SSH feature added.


    Originally posted by Eu1net
    I don't believe this 15 minute average (it's an average!!!) means that your problem will be solved in 15 min. It just means someone will answer your ticket with something like "I'm looking in to this".
    As I stated in my origional post, I didn't get any emails from them. Not even a "I'm looking in to this" from them. I waited 2hours 30mins to get a "response".

    Originally posted by Eu1net
    I do not believe site5's management can ignore this thread. So maybe they'll give us some info regarding NetAdmin 4 and my.Site5. Adam, I agree with you that it's not ok to advertise software that's not available. But I read Matt Lightner's interview to hostingtech.com and I have a positive opinion regarding site5.
    I do hope Site5 does give us some answers to this as I would like to hear from their management. Prior to signing up I also used to regard Site5 highly. Also as I stated in my first post, how long would it take them to put a simple note on the home or order page saying, "Some features are not quite ready yet, they will be ready shortly", or words to that effect? Not too long I know that for sure.

    Originally posted by Eu1net
    I don't believe site5 advertises a false average of support response time, because it also advertises uptime. And it's not a 99,999% uptime...
    I was not and am not suggesting they advertise false support averages. What I was however stating was that there support CAN take longer and most probably does. I mean with as many customers as Site5 has I doubt 1 customer would effect their averages much. Come to think of it I doubt 100 would.

    Adam

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Posts
    1,306
    Originally posted by Eu1net
    I don't believe this 15 minute average (it's an average!!!) means that your problem will be solved in 15 min. It just means someone will answer your ticket with something like "I'm looking in to this".
    This looks like fun - another episode of Math for Webhosts. Let's follow along.

    If there is a 2 hour and 30 minute response on one ticket, how many 10 minute responses must occur in order to maintain a 15 minute average response time? Assuming we're taking the conventional meaning of average as the mean, the question is (150+10*(N-1))/N=15. Solving for N, we get 28. So for everyone 2.5 hour response, there have to be 28 10-minute responses in order to maintain a 15-minute average response time.

    If the average in this case were the median, that would be an entirely different situation. Nearly 50% of responses could be arbitrarily longer than 15 minutes, but median is not usually what anyone means when they refer to "average" informally. Or you could throw out outliers by some definition, but you would want to specify that when you describe how the average is calculated.

    Note: I have no experience with Site5 and this post is not about them, just about math.

    Kevin

  9. #9
    Either we or the webhosts are v e r y weak at maths

  10. #10
    I first though that there might be a mail delivery delay like not every time the email comes right away. But after reading the whole post I just realized I don't want to deal with that host. Even if adam-pca is not all way honest or not telling everything I still won't deal with Site5

  11. #11
    2 hrs. 30 mins response time may be a little on the longer side, but if that is enough for you to run to a public message board and complain, you strike me as a very tough customer to please.

    They advertise 15 minutes AVERAGE, which means that it can take much less, or much more time, depending on the amount of pressure their support team is under at any particular time.

    Have you sent in any support queries after that (not pertaining to the NetAdmin/my.site5 issue)? If yes, how long did they take to respond?
    Last edited by VER-Mo; 05-17-2005 at 10:07 AM.
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    1,100
    Adam,

    I am very sorry to hear of this issue. I would love to look into this further for you. Could you please email me as to roughly what day and time you logged into live chat and I can look into this for you and see what the issue may have been.

    Please email me at thawes [ @ ] site5.com, thank you very much!
    HostGator.com - A worldwide leader in Shared, Reseller, VPS and Dedicated Server Hosting.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267
    Originally posted by Moni-Q
    2 hrs. 30 mins response time may be a little on the longer side, but if that is enough for you to run to a public message board and complain, you strike me as a very tough customer to please.
    I am not running to a message board to complain, I signed up with Site5 to test their services and I had the plan to post a review here before I even signed up. Nor do I think that 2hours 30mins is a bad response time, what I do think though is that Site5 advertises a much better response time than other hosts, thus I expected more from them.

    Originally posted by Moni-Q
    They advertise 15 minutes AVERAGE, which means that it can take much less, or much more time, depending on the amount of pressure their support team is under at any particular time.
    Again I completly understand that but if that was the case why didn't they inform me? If they were having problems that would be fine. But how do I know if they were experiancing problems and that this was not the normal if noone from their support team tells me?

    Originally posted by Moni-Q
    Have you sent in any support queries after that (not pertaining to the NetAdmin/my.site5 issue)? If yes, how long did they take to respond?
    I currently have just entered a support request with Site5. I will see how it goes this time and make a post as soon as I get a response.

    Adam

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    England
    Posts
    513
    Originally posted by adam-pca
    Again I completly understand that but if that was the case why didn't they inform me? If they were having problems that would be fine. But how do I know if they were experiancing problems and that this was not the normal if noone from their support team tells me?
    Having problems != busy support.

    The 15min average has been explained so I shan't repeat it.

    Also consider that SSH access may require some checks and processes to be completed, which would mean it's more time consuming than a 15min ticket such as "I've reset your e-mail password for you", etc.

    Also Taylor - April 28th has passed, methinks you should update your sig

  15. #15
    ..... ignore

  16. #16
    15 minutes or 150 minutes , advertising something and not providing that is certainly very bad - and no mincing words, this should be notified very prominently, very clearly and very urgently on the site main page by a host who has good fame as honest host

    In fact why this has not been done is a big query

    the aggrived customer may find some consolation in this - see attchment
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails site51.gif  
    Last edited by mahut; 05-17-2005 at 12:40 PM.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267
    Originally posted by mahut
    15 minutes or 150 minutes , advertising something and not providing that is certainly very bad - and no mincing words, this should be notified very prominently, very clearly and very urgently on the site main page by a host who has good fame as honest host

    In fact why this has not been done is a big query

    the aggrived customer may find some consolation in this - see attchment
    Hmm, not bad. At least there is some sign of them doing something about it. I also have just had a conversation with a live help operator, they suggested I emailed billing. I will be doing that now.

    Adam

  18. #18
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Posts
    267
    Also to update on my support request they have semi-answered it now. They answered in 1hour 10mins which isn't bad, it didn't really answer my question though, just a simple note telling me to email billing.

    Personaly at the moment the idea I am getting from Site5 is that they hadn't planned this superhosting well enough. Apparantly in it's first week everyone had NetAdmin 4 but then Site5 rolled everyones accounts back to NetAdmin 3, which to be quite honest explains itself, it wasn't ready. Maybe they should have held off on the superhosting untill everything was perfect.

    And as far as support statistics, why don't they give us some REAL statistics so we can see for ourselves what the ACTUAL averages are. It shouldn't be too hard, just a simple query to their Cerberus helpdesk (which already has a script for this on their forums) and we would have accurate real time stats. Or is there something they are hiding.

    Adam

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    St. Louis, MO
    Posts
    1,653
    So Superhosting launched on April 28th and was to include netadmin 4, yet its now May 17th and still no netadmin 4? No offense, but that is pretty blantent False Advertisement there. Might want to fix your website so it reflects what you do have, and what you can offer.

    Maybe Taylor or some other Site5 rep could clear this up for us?
    Happily hosting @ Dathorn.com (Since 3/2003), Ispeeds.net (Since 2004), & Quadspeedi.net (Since 7/2005)!
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  20. #20
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    26
    The point is that Site5 advertises 4 amazing new features for their Superhosting Plans, among them netAdmin4 and mySite5. If a company does not provide advertised features with a service or product it can be considered as incorrect marketing, in my opinion. But I'm sure Site5 will clarify the situation.

  21. #21
    It pains me to write this after being with Site5 for many years of great service.

    The last month, the email service has been horrible. Some emails are taking 24 to 36 hours to get to an address within the domain it is sent from.

    I'm affraid it appears they have taken on more accounts than they can handle and the service has taken a huge dive.

    I can only hope the problems get resolved soon or I will be forced to look elsewhere for hosting.

  22. #22
    I was considering site5, too. It's the promptness of email that is the central issue for me. We have very low needs as a customer in terms of bandwidth or website (no databases, local non-profit), but email exchange is our primary need.

    As for the original complaint, it is obviously slanted from the point of view of a frustrated customer. No blame, though, we all get there. His point is well-taken in that there a multiple disappointments met with an unprofessionally brusque response.

    Probably not really "abusive" and "false advertising." It sounds like the more accurate assessment would be:

    site5 underestimated diffculty of complex upgrade
    Over-stressed support staff briefly forgot to be polite
    Previously excellent response times suffered during the transition
    site5 appears to be a company going through growth pains
    it's hard to tell when and if they will return to previous excellent service

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Las Vegas
    Posts
    799
    Originally posted by mahut
    15 minutes or 150 minutes , advertising something and not providing that is certainly very bad - and no mincing words, this should be notified very prominently, very clearly and very urgently on the site main page by a host who has good fame as honest host

    In fact why this has not been done is a big query

    the aggrived customer may find some consolation in this - see attchment

    wow site5 is not playing by the rules , false advertising is not good

  24. #24
    True that three weeks should allow time to add a 'coming soon' disclaimer to the site.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    32
    I had my eyes on Site5 too. Now I may have to re-investigate for new host. Bad/hostile customer service is definitely a NO-NO for me. I hope they can address this problem and let us know how they would treat their customers from now on.

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