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  1. #1

    Thumbs down I will never use iPowerWeb.com again.

    I will never use iPowerWeb.com again.

    I have had an account with iPowerWeb.com for nearly a year. They have hosted my personal website and email during that time. (To make the story telling easier, I'll just call it oldsite.com)

    Nearly a month ago I purchased a server from colo4jax.com (which I found here in these forums) I was planning on hosting my site there along with a few others.

    Last night I finished getting the colo4jax server setup and was almost ready to transfer DNS over to the new box.

    My plan was to go to gkg.net (my registrar) and change the name servers for oldsite.com to point to the new box--and while DNS was transferring over, still checking my mailbox at ipowerweb so I didn't lose any email.

    I clicked send and receive in Evolution (my mail app) and it said there were no messages on oldsite.com. (Note that I hadn't switched anything over yet.)

    I found that odd. I get about 500 messages a day from mailing lists. There was nothing in my box, and I hadn't checked in a few hours.

    I double-checked *everything* just in case I had screwed something up. whois still said my nameservers were pointed to ipowerweb, the dns of the mail server was still ipowerweb.

    So I tried telnetting into ipowerweb on port 25. I typed a message in manually to my box test@oldsite.com. The server accepted the message.

    I re-telnetted into port 110 and typed in everything to access my box. It said my box was empty.

    At this point I figured they were just having mail problems again. So I gave up for the night and went to bed.

    In the morning, still no messages in my box.

    So I called their support number.
    This is where the fun began.
    It rang for over a minute straight.

    Finally the auto-attendant picked up and told me to press '1' for support.
    I did.
    It rang for over 3 minutes before the auto-attendant said "all agents are assisting customers". It advised me to visit their website rather than hold.

    After waiting on hold for over 10 minutes, I decided to give the website a shot.
    I used their "LiveChat" option to talk with a 'tech'.

    Here's how the conversation went: (My comments added in **)

    Chat Information Please wait for a site operator to respond.
    Chat Information You are now chatting with 'Darren G.'
    Darren G.: Welcome to iPower Live Chat. How may I help you?
    Aaron: Hi Darren. I'll hopefully make this real quick. You are hosting email for my domain (oldsite.com) last night around 2300 hours my time, your site was still accepting mail for my domain, it just wasn't delivering it into my mailboxes. Are you having any mail problems there?
    Darren G.: Hi Aaron.
    Darren G.: I'll be happy to assist you.
    Darren G.: Are you able to send and receive the emails from your email accounts?

    ** Only a minute in, and I'm starting to think they are outsourcing their support to India. I think the part that gives it away is that I tell him what the problem is, and then he asks a completely irrelevant question.

    Aaron: I am able to send email TO (for example) aaron@oldsite.com Your server accepts the message and queues it. But it never shows up in my box. It stopped working last night at around 2200 PST.
    Darren G.: Ok.
    Darren G.: Pleas provide me your email account with the password that you are facing the problem.
    Aaron: Let me dig up the password.
    Aaron: aaron@oldsite.com
    Aaron: password: mypassword
    Darren G.: Ok.
    Darren G.: Please allow me a moment to check.

    --30 minute delay--

    **At this point I'm beginning to wonder if he stepped out for lunch...

    Aaron: Done checking?
    Darren G.: Please provide me your contact email address so that I'll contact you regarding this issue.

    ** Yeah--definitely from India. Bad engrish, and he doesn't seem to understand that he can't contact me via email--BECAUSE MY EMAIL ISN'T WORKING! So now I'm starting to get pissed off.

    Aaron: aaron@oldsite.com
    Aaron: But you can't contact me via email to resolve this issue.
    Aaron: MY EMAIL ISN'T WORKING.
    Aaron: Am I talking to a human or a computer?
    Darren G.: Aaron our level 2 tech are working on your issue you should receive the response from our level 2 techs very soon.
    **Hello? Are you listening?
    Aaron: My email doesn't work.
    Aaron: They CAN'T EMAIL ME A RESPONSE!


    --5 minute delay--
    Darren G.: Ok.
    --5 minute delay--

    **What the hell is going on here?
    Aaron: So how are we going to resolve this? Can they call me using a phone?
    Darren G.: Yes I'm working on it.

    --20 minute delay--

    Darren G.: Aaron our level 2 techs are working on your issue it will take time to resolve your issue.
    Darren G.: Please provide me your alternate email account so that I'll contact you.
    Aaron: I don't have an alternate email account. It's not like I need 50 different email accounts for people to contact me. I just need one. Which is now down. How about a phone number?

    ** Note to self, I should probably call Nextel and Cingular and pickup a few additional cell phones--just in case I need an 'alternate'.

    --5 minute delay--

    Aaron: How about you give me the phone number to talk to your level 2 tech and I will call him.
    Darren G.: Our technical support department is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
    Darren G.: Toll free: 1-888-511-4678 option 1
    Darren G.: Outside USA: 1-310-314-1608 option 1
    Darren G.: E-mail: support@ipowerweb.com
    Darren G.: Is there anything else I can help you with?

    **Aaagh! I'm not calling your *&#% main number.

    Aaron: I tried calling that number before I came into this live chat. The number rang for over a minute straight before the auto attendant picked up. When I hit option 1, the phone rang for nearly 3 minutes straight before I finally hung up. Is there a direct number to the SPECIFIC level 2 tech you have working on it?

    Darren G.: Is there anything else I can help you with?
    Aaron: Yes. Did you even read what I wrote?!?
    Aaron: How about helping me with it.

    Darren G.: Aaron our level 2 techs are working on this problem once the issue will fixed you will receive the email at your contact email address.

    **Is this dude stuck in a feedback loop or something?

    Darren G.: Also you will able to access your email accoun.

    **Game over for me. I never want to use their service again.
    Aaron: ok--whatever. ipowerweb's customer service sucks. I'm canceling my service.

    Darren G.: I understand you are frustrated and I apologize for your inconvenience. I understand how you feel and will do my best to provide you with the best possible resolution.
    Darren G.: Please hold on.

    Aaron: We've been trying for nearly an hour now. I'll call the 800 number in a few minutes.

    **End of chat

    A window pops up after I close the chat. It's a survey.
    Here's what it asked, and my responses:



    It was a pleasure chatting with you. You're welcome to stop by iPower HelpChat anytime. Please take a moment and let us know what you think of our service.
    Required items indicated with *.

    How would you rate your level of satisfaction with our representative(s)? * Very Dissatisfied

    How would you rate your level of satisfaction with your website control panel? * Satisfied

    How would you rate the server and email performance you have experienced with our service? * Very Dissatisfied

    Please describe the most memorable thing about your experience with iPower - whether positive or negative. *

    Being unable to reach anyone over the 800 number after letting the phone ring for over 3 minutes, and then being unable to communicate with the idiot on LiveChat. Communication is a two way street. It just doesn't work when I ask a question and the person completely blows it off and starts talking about having me call the 800 number.

    Do the livechat people even understand what a webhost is? Do they know what SMTP is? How about a 'web site'?

    I am calling the 800 number again. If by some miracle I manage to get through to someone, I am canceling my service.

    ---

    So I sit at my desk for a few minutes and decide to check my mail again. One new message on their server.

    It's the very first test message I sent last night. One message. Out of about 250 that should have been there.

    So I called the 800 number again.
    Same as last time.
    Rings for a minute or so before the attendant picks up. Rings for about 3 minutes before it tells me all the techs are on the phone.

    After waiting on hold for 20 minutes, I finally got through to someone. A human. And I can understand him.

    Straight off, I ask him if the LiveChat guys are in India. He says "yeah".

    So I tell him my story of woe, and he checks a few things. He tries sending mail to my box from their mail server. It doesn't work.
    So he says he'll pass it on to one of the server techs.

    In the mean time, I throw DNS over to colo4jax and it's only a matter of minutes before mail starts pouring into my new box.

    Who the *#&@ knows where email was going on the ipowerweb servers. Apparently their techs don't even know.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Hi,

    Seems like it wasnt too good of a experience, sometimes issues do take longer to get resolved especially when they are outsourcing support to techs that are not so knowledgable in the first place. Good luck in the future though
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  3. #3
    Agreed.
    Of course, now I'm hosting my own server.
    If something goes wrong, I'll only have myself to blame.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    In the office
    Posts
    857
    You've definitely made the right choice moving to your own dedicated server where you can manage everything. Definitely seems like you had a bad experience, good luck in the future.

  5. #5
    yeh sounds like a roller coster ride. better luck in futer

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    WNC
    Posts
    1,142
    Good luck with your new host
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
    Posts
    149
    For a couple of websites I signed up recently with iPowerWeb, I ran into problems while sending mails. The problem was intermittant though.

    I definitely think iPowerWeb is not a good choice. I have some unpleasent experience with their billing department. People there don't seem to be the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. I used to like iPowerWeb, but NOT anymore.

    Terry
    Kick Ass SEO - Minnesota Search Engine Optimization Service

  8. #8
    Ipowerweb is not a very good company when it comes to providing support and service. Sorry to read that, wish you best of luck for next time.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    [BC]
    Posts
    161
    Honestly though darkpixel,

    From the transcript of your chat, it looks like you were chatting with one of those fuzzy-logic, self-learning chat robots.

    Because the way it reads, few of DarrenG's replies are actually addressing your questions. I remember using some robot like that on my BBS back in the old days, just to keep the kids entertained! It would just fire off random lines vaguely related to the other party's comments. Sometimes they'd chat with this thing for hours and some of them actually thought it was a real chick chatting with 'em

    P.S.
    It's 7.95 for 5 Terabytes of disk space and 900 zillion GBs of traffic. Can't expect them to be too strong in their support...
    | Priority support (Since July 2001) | 99.9%+ uptime (Alertra stats available) |
    | Dual Xeon servers at local data center | Premium PEER1 bandwidth |
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    I just found out that ipowerweb dns servers has my domain name on them and I cancelled hosting with them about a year ago. I wonder if their customers can even email me?

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Northern Europe.
    Posts
    2,573
    Ipowerweb is a large company, a real Behemoth ....
    And they are recommended in many places -- although on closer inspection they do have lots of dissatisfied clients -- who have had experiences similar to the abovementioned. I'm sure they save lots of $$ by outsourcing to India...
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Goleta, CA
    Posts
    5,566
    Do they really have a choice though? Whenever I need to search for an employee it's almost impossible to find someone competent, shows up during agreed upon time, is honest, and interacts positively with others. Staff also require training. You generally can't explain something to an old woman the same way you can to say a computer saavy youth.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    642
    Festus2005 => ur signature is horrifying
    i dont want it to ever happen

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    Quote Originally Posted by roboxooo
    Festus2005 => ur signature is horrifying
    i dont want it to ever happen
    It is from Battlestar Galactica.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Nadabrahma
    Ipowerweb is a large company, a real Behemoth ....
    Yes, they are huge and that's almost kind of what you'd expect from a company that size. It's all about the numbers.
    YourCheapHost.com - Low cost multi domain hosting solutions. [Legal adult content friendly]
    Reliable web site hosting is our motto. We have Alertra stats to back that up.
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  16. #16
    it's good to read this thread before i choose my host

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Stoke on Trent, England.
    Posts
    26
    Hehe, t'is always good to hear the day to day rants of the WHT forum, eh?

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