Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : uggggghh Vizaweb

[damnit77]

So I've had a reseller account with Vizaweb.com since November 2004. I prepaid for a year in advance, as I always do (been with Vizaweb with other sites since early 2004).

My website is hosting4beer dot com , and I give local bands or friends webspace and BW in exchange for a promise of alcoholic beverages. This way I'm getting free beer, which is pretty sweet.

So anyways, the other night I was editing my resume and included my URL. Went to the site to check something and it was down. Instead of a 404, theres a Vizaweb "Account Suspended" page. That kinda pisses me off, I'd rather have a 404 then have someone think Vizaweb has anything to do with me. The Account Suspended page gives 2 reasons as to why the site isn't up:

1. Non-payment...I pay for a year in advance and never go above my quotas.

2. That my account is causing problems on the server....this is almost as bad as implying that I don't pay my bills...I'm a Systems Administrator. Thats whats on my resume and my resume links to a dead site.

My cPanel/WHM is also locked, I can't grab a backup and move to another host, WHICH I DON'T WANT TO DO. I've already pre-paid and then I'm going to have to explain a mandatory DNS change to my customers.

I've called their "support" numbers, no answer, no voicemail. I've emailed their old support email and their new ones, theres 2 tickets open on the matter and I haven't got a single reply yet.

I knew I should have canceled when they sent out an email explaining that they've got really popular lately and can't keep up (Response time went from 3 to 12 hours, then back to 6. Its been 48).

So yeah, just wanted to let everyone know. I searched and have seen that other people were having problems last month. Up to now I haven't really had to complain about anything....the random outages would last for 6-8 hours, but at least someone would reply.

That sucks too, when you're hosting a band out on tour and their site is down when they're playing NYC.

I've probably already lost a lot of respect and maybe a job offer thanks to Vizaweb. If my girlfriend gets her sweet job then maybe I'll just do a Dedicated server. Until then I'm kinda screwed. Thanks Rick Mueller.

[Ariel74]

That's bad. IMHO, a host should attempt to contact a customer if they suspend an account, whatever the reason.

However, you should keep an off-site backup of your site and your customers' sites so you can move them to a secondary host if needed.

[Zach-E2]

sorry to hear about your misfortune, but yeah, definitely keep a backup!

[damnit77]

All my customer's sites are still up, its just mine thats down. It wouldn't really matter if I did keep a backup, I'm broke and can't afford a $275 move now. I'm just pissed that I prepaid for this crappy service. I'd hate to waste it if it did work.

And btw, does everyone think this is a good deal?

6GB space / 100 GB bandwidth / 30 reseller accounts = $275/year

[ArtieFishill]

$23 a month...seems reasonable.

You said this JUST happened?

Then can you explain this?

http://www.pirate969.org/mboard/showthread.php?t=15692

Dated 3/25/2005.

[damnit77]

Originally posted by ArtieFishill
$23 a month...seems reasonable.

You said this JUST happened?

Then can you explain this?

pirate969.org/m

Dated 3/25/2005.

Uhhh yeah, noticed the site was down on Tuesday night.

Of course I can explain that...I uploaded a rather large video that ended up burning my whole month's bandwidth in 3 days. Vizaweb closed the account for the month and sent me a bill for $30 for 10GB bandwidth to cover the rest of the month. I didn't pay, becuase $3/gig is kinda expensive, there was 6 days left in the month, and I'm on the 2 week paycycle. I live paycheck to paycheck, I'm just now starting to look for a higher-paying job, and then my site goes down.

[ArtieFishill]

Just checking...

Is it possible the same thing happened again? Seems odd they would arbitrarily suspend your reseller. ANd you are right, they don't answer the phone...I tried both the tech line and the sales...one rang till it got a "We're not here" and a hangup and the sales line was just busy signal.

Wierd.

Not sure how cPanel handles it, but DA will shut off a resellers access if he goes over BW....but leave sites functioning.

[damnit77]

Originally posted by ArtieFishill
Just checking...

Is it possible the same thing happened again? Seems odd they would arbitrarily suspend your reseller. ANd you are right, they don't answer the phone...I tried both the tech line and the sales...one rang till it got a "We're not here" and a hangup and the sales line was just busy signal.

Wierd.

Not sure how cPanel handles it, but DA will shut off a resellers access if he goes over BW....but leave sites functioning.

Theres no way it happened again, there was pretty much nothing on the site. These past 3 months I've been lucky to go over 20GB bandwidth when I'm alotted 100

[crazyfish]

Ever since Leo LePorte started pumping their service, they have gone downhill. My first 4 month or so with them were good, never had an issue, they answered all my questions right away. No you are lucky if you get an answer or if your site stays up for more then a day or two. My website is always up and down. I don't really use it anyways. I tried to upgrade my account once and it took them about 5 days to get reply to my request. I had purchased another site and wanted to move it well after about 4 days of them telling me we will move it tonight I gave up told them to forget the account move/upgrade and got an account at hostingzoom and was up and running a few hours later.

Its really too bad, because Leo keeps pushing vizaweb on all his shows. I bet they are getting a lot of business to bad the customers will be upset after signing up.

[damnit77]

Yeah, I sent an email to Leo explaining everything, he replied back saying he had forwarded it to the owner. As long as he gets free webspace and bandwidth I'm sure he doesn't give a damn.

[JSpired]

Originally posted by damnit77
Uhhh yeah, noticed the site was down on Tuesday night.

Of course I can explain that...I uploaded a rather large video that ended up burning my whole month's bandwidth in 3 days. Vizaweb closed the account for the month and sent me a bill for $30 for 10GB bandwidth to cover the rest of the month. I didn't pay, becuase $3/gig is kinda expensive, there was 6 days left in the month, and I'm on the 2 week paycycle. I live paycheck to paycheck, I'm just now starting to look for a higher-paying job, and then my site goes down.

Is it at all possible that because you didn't pay your overage fees, they've suspended your account due to carrying an outstanding balance?

[damnit77]

Originally posted by JSpired
Is it at all possible that because you didn't pay your overage fees, they've suspended your account due to carrying an outstanding balance?

I never went over my bandwidth limit and no one has responded to my emails/calls/fax for 3 days now.

Seriously thinking about a switch to ServerInt before my 1 year prepay runs out with Vizaweb.

[JSpired]

Originally posted by damnit77
I never went over my bandwidth limit and no one has responded to my emails/calls/fax for 3 days now.

Seriously thinking about a switch to ServerInt before my 1 year prepay runs out with Vizaweb.

I know you didn't go over this time. I read in your earlier post (in this thread) though that you stated you chose not to pay your earlier overage fees. Just a thought..

[ArtieFishill]

This is why I stopped offering yearly payments. You can't predict the future and I would rather my clients have the small inconvience of paying monthly or quarterly then them having to deal with losign money or me having to deal with refunds, etc if God forbid my business went bad.

Not to mention, having all your clients pay yearly screws up your cash flow..lol.

[damnit77]

Originally posted by JSpired
I know you didn't go over this time. I read in your earlier post (in this thread) though that you stated you chose not to pay your earlier overage fees. Just a thought..

I don't understand what you're getting at.

Is it ok to not respond to customers 7 months after a customer elects to not pay an OPTIONAL bill?

Are they avenging that earlier bill? Is that ok in the small web host business?

That earlier bill should have nothing to do with my site STILL being down.