I've been with VarHosting.net for my reseller account for about a year and a half now, and at first I was really impressed with their technical support staff's quick responses to my questions. I host a number of small clients' websites via the reseller account, and pay a quarterly amount of about £25 for the service.

In early august, my debit card expired, and thus the paypal subscription by which I normally pay for my account was automatically cancelled. As I had a billing date coming up (10th August) I attempted to contact VarHostings billing department, and request that they send me a new paypal subscription to reflect my new card. Having trawled through the various control panels and UMS's that Var use, I was sure there was no link enabling me to do this myself.

To my annoyance, noone contacted me back about paying my invoice until 1 week after it was due, when I was told my account had been suspended due to not paying for it. Despite having sent 2 emails to billing@varhosting.net by this time, the problem had not been resolved.

Fortunately, I was able to get into contact with Roj Niyogi, who I believe is the MD at Var, a couple of days later. He sent me a new subscription request, which I accepted, and paid for my account on the 21st august. He then replied by email, and told me my account was unsuspended.

I tried to log on to my account, both on the WHM panel, and onto every single one of the client websites hosted, and found the account was not unsuspended at all. I immeditately sent Roj another email telling him of this, to which he replied

"Which domain is suspended right now? I see that your account is showing active at this time. Please let me know!"

I replied telling him none of my account was working, on August 25th, about 6 hours after he contacted me. Since then, I have heard absolutely nothing from either Roj Niyogi or any of the supposed billing department.

Naturally I have made many attempts to follow this up with VarHosting. I have emailed Roj twice since, on September 1st and September 6th, but have received no reply. I have also registered a support ticket in VarHosting members (the one panel I can still access), but this was not even viewed for a week, and has never received a reply.

I have since resorted to using the "24 hour support" offered by VarHosting, which is not intended for billing uses, but still remains the only link to the company by which anyone replies. I have spoken to the 24 hour support team 4 times in the last 2 weeks, and so far I have been told "Please wait a moment", "I will get back to you shortly" "I have to check something with a colleague" and "Someone from the billing department will contact you soon". NONE of these promises have ever been fulfilled, and I suspect if I go into chat again, I will receive a similar answer.

To be honest, this is beyond ridiculous. I have received absolutely zero for a service I paid for almost 3 weeks ago. I assume there is a big problem preventing Var from unsuspending my account- perhaps they accidentally deleted it? Even if this were the case, I should like to be informed of it, so that I can claim my money back, and move to a more useful company.

For a company saying "VARhosting.net understands the value of support. We provide support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! If you're an existing reseller customer of ours, please login below to submit a helpdesk request. And yes, the specialists our own staff" on their website, this is frankly appalling.

My advice to anyone who reads this: don't go near Var with a bargepole. Its simply not worth your money.

And if, by any small chance, someone from VarHosting happens to read this, my support ticket number is: 32384-2604090518 should you feel like following up on it.