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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007

    Hosting.com Review handling of maj. issues - 3 year customer

    Some have seen this partially in other posts I've made, but this is my official Hosting.com review and issues.

    I was with Hosting.com for over 3 years. I needed a reliable host with major bandwidth for a very popular customer (legit product sales, nothing fishy). I wanted "name brand".

    The price was $79 a month, usable disk space, 3G. I know, I know, way over priced, but this was 3 years ago. No, no price breaks to keep up with competition were ever offered or given if asked.

    So, all is Ok, just normal support issues, a bit of "corporate red tape" since they are so big in getting any support, but that's to be expected with a company that big.

    Then, one day last month, I wake up to an email "hey, my site is...um...the old one...from a year ago..". Scratching my head, I start looking around. Slowly, I realize something: the entire VPS, not just my sites, EVERYTHING had reverted to a state as it sat almost exactly 1 year ago. I start looking at dates....nothing is older than that day, one year prior. Nothing! I mean /mnt, /dev, /lib, EVERYTHING was reverted. Obviously, my VPS had been restored to a state, I hope accidentally, from a 1 year old backup.

    I call support. They don't understand, at first. They accuse me of uploading old data, then I explain, "no, every file on the server..." I ask how I restore /mnt or /dev on a mounted file system over an ssh bash terminal? Duh. I wouldn't even HINT at the insecurity that implies, if I were indeed the culprit.
    Obviously, someone was killing accounts or something, accidentally targeted my VPS, deleted it, then realized their mistake, and restored it. Only problem was, they ticked "2008" instead of "2009". It was blatantly obvious. All I wanted was Hosting.com to be accountable, and admit this had happened. I had all the data (firm believer in backups) Well, they didn't. They pretty much called me a liar, and said if anything was done, I did it. Again, how do I replace /mnt while the file system is mounted? They think me quite the hacking trickster! If only I had those skillz.

    So, I bite the bullet, now thinking MUCH less of Hosting.com than I ever have before. I upload my backups, and re-configure. Crazy ... Sites I deleted 2 years ago were back, along with the config in httpd.conf and other files. (I don't backup the config files, as I can easly re-type them if need be) Sites I hadn't retained the data for in over a year, restored, along with the virtual host entries. But somehow, I restored this. Data I didn't have.

    So, I start looking around for other hosts, because I'm a bit miffed now, and I want to know from Hosting.com, how much bandwidth did I purchase with my account 3 years ago? I had lost the original order, so I knew disk space, but needed the BW numbers for comparison.

    I submit a ticket, through their on-line helpdesk system. I get an automated reply. 2 days later, nothing. I re-update the ticket, wait another day. Nothing. I then re-submit another update, wait another day. Nothing. 4 days 20 hrs later, still *nothing*. I had since found another host and transferred everything away, and submitted a new ticket with CANCEL MY ACCOUNT in the subject. I got an answer 11 minutes later.

    Here is the answer:

    -------snip-----
    From:
    Hosting.com <noreply@hosting.com>
    To:
    xxx@xxxx.org
    Subject:
    Re: [Ticket#090408-031315] CANCEL MY ACCOUNT
    Category: Administration
    Task: Administration

    Hi Kxxx,

    Thanks for contacting us. I apologize for the inconvenience and the delay in returning
    your request. It seems your ticket was mis-routed to our Administrative queue over the
    weekend when our normal technical support staff is out the of the office. Our
    administrative queue is only for billing related requests and replies after it goes into
    this queue do not get sent to our technical support department. I have reviewed your
    account and do not see a bandwidth note. I am escalating this ticket to our management
    team for review. Again, our apologizes for the delay in processing.

    Best Regards and Have a Great Day,
    Your Advanced Hosting Support Team

    Chris Cxxx
    --------snip---

    Seems "CANCEL MY ACCOUNT" will get some attention.

    Although I am uninterested in continuing my relationship with Hosting.com, I am interested to see how they respond, since I have sent my issue to the CEO, VP of Marketing, etc.

    I'll post if anything interesting happens. Free year? Yeah, right.

    Bottom line: Hosting.com has nice, fast bandwidth and CPU / Memory, but that's where it stops. If you like paying 80 bucks a month for 3G of disk space, and want to wake up to a year-old server, and then don't get even as much as a "sorry", then Hosting.com is for YOU! I now have 2 servers w/ 50G of space, 850GB of data transfer EACH, with HyperVM for 1/2 of what I was paying Hosting.com. About to add another. It's sad I could get 4 of these server for exactly 1 dollar more than I have been paying for the last 3 years. That's 200G total DS, 3.4TB total of bandwidth, opposed to the 3G limited DS, and who knows how much bandwidth because they haven't answered me on support going on 5 days now!

    Simply put, they were expensive back "in the day". Now, they are probably the most expensive option ever, and also, you don't get "the fist name in hosting" Tier 1 support any more. It's no where to be found.

    Sad, really sad. Anyone know their financials? If that's the classic experience with them now, I don't expect them to be around too much longer. Happy customers are key. I'm clearly not one any more.

    Want a great VPS? FSCKVPS.COM rocks! If you are a shell guy, and just need control panels for emergencies and low-level stuff like setting your revers dns, these guys simply can't be beat.

    Watch for the outcome of how "The First Name in Hosting" handles a majorly PO'ed customer.
    Last edited by writespeak; 06-22-2010 at 10:47 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007
    So, since this last post, I have heard nothing from Hosting.com. Apparently they just don't give a crap about customers.

    Check out the ticket just asking how much BW I have...especially the open time. Coming up on 6 days to answer a simple question.
    What happens if you have, like, a service interruption problem?
    Fly at your own risk.

    090404-030725 5 days 19 hours
    Bandwidth open Administrative lmetz

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Sorry to hear about the issues you have experienced, I'd recommend keep trying until you can get through to upper management and see if this is truly the case that they don't want to help you with the issue. Good luck and definitely keep us updated!

    Cheers
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007
    After 6 Days and bout 15 hours, I get an answer to the original question: How much bandwidth did my VPS originally come with?

    Answer:
    --------------
    From:
    Hosting.com <noreply@hosting.com>
    To:
    xxx@xxxx.org
    Subject:
    Re: [Ticket#090404-030725] BANDWIDTH?
    Category: unassigned
    Task: unassigned

    Dear xxxx,

    Sorry for the delay. You get 1TB per VPS.

    Please let me know if you have any questions.

    Thanks
    --------------------------

    1 week, and I get an answer. Make of that what you will.
    Is this the kind of support you want for your 80 bucks a month?

    But, still no answer or acknowledgment AT ALL from the "CLOSE MY ACCOUNT" Ticket.

    Age on that one so far? 2 Days, 2 hours. I've also copied it to their CEO, VP, and "Sales" general messages. After spelling out my issues and lack of any support after paying them $1,790.66 since the beginning of our "relationship", I don't even get a courteous "We don't really care, sir. Get Lost." Nothing. Nada. Not from anyone. Not from Darren King, CEO, not from Jonathan Erwin, VP of Sales and Marketing.

    Bottom line: They just just don't seem to care. I guess they got too big to actually worry about individual accounts that don't bring in major annual bucks.

    They may claim to be the "first name in hosting", but the only thing I know for sure is: they are definitely the "last name in customer service". If I weren't experiencing it myself, it would be unbelievable.

    I thought I may get some attention through the ticketing system and issue-raising emails to their management, but I guess I'll just make a cold-call to a nameless service rep and close my account officially tomorrow, since they are not responding to my ticket aimed at doing so in an issue-documenting way.

    Beware: Hosting.com is unaccountable and simply does not give any personal service at all. The only thing they have done reliably is take my money.
    Last edited by mugo; 04-11-2009 at 02:32 AM.

  5. #5
    thanks for sharing your experience,remembger to keep us updated

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Posts
    6,884
    Sorry to hear your troubles. Keep us updated on the progress.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007
    Well, after 3 years, I can't believe, I'm Hosting.com-less now. *sniff* *sniff*.
    So I gave them days, no one every responded. I finally called in, got a tech, and canceled my account. They let the current due bill slide because of my trouble, but aside from a lot of "gosh I'm sorry, we just have no idea how your VPS got reverted, it's been talked about alot around here.." into "I don't know why your tickets went unanswered...", I really got nuthin'.

    Apparently one new guy handles customer advocacy (Chris somethingornother) and he is new, and apparently hasn't gotten a handle on the system. Well, at least that's what I was told.
    So they tried to talk me into keeping my VPS, and I was like "sure, for 10 bucks a month". They could come up with better pricing, they said, but they would only be able to DROP it to about 60. Yeah, I said "drop to 60". Shame on me for paying that w/ 3GB of usable space, no kind of control panel at all, just me and my shell. And my uploaded web sites leaving me a very close-to-empty-feeling 1GB of wiggle room.

    If money is no deterrent, and you don't need support of any kind, if space if of no concern, and you really don't think anyone should be "accountable", and...best of all, you really love excuses instead of answer, then Hosting.com is your kind of place!
    It's a little sad to see them go from what they were when I started to how it all ended. Sort of felt like if my significant other got all hooked on drugs and just kind of gave up and ran off, but still showed up at the door once a month to scam some "fix money". Also reminds me of that old song "Last night I came in at 2 with a 10, But at 10 I woke up with a 2"

    And thus ends an era.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Cardiff - United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,569
    Wow, they sound a really bad host :/ Out of interest, were you using much of your bandwidth allocation? Because for $60-$80 per month you could get a really nice fully managed VPS (with a control panel ), but you probably wouldn't be able to get 1 TB of bandwidth. But probably 20-30GB disk-space etc.

    Good luck in finding a new host

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007

    New Host

    Quote Originally Posted by tristanperry View Post
    Wow, they sound a really bad host :/ Out of interest, were you using much of your bandwidth allocation? Because for $60-$80 per month you could get a really nice fully managed VPS (with a control panel ), but you probably wouldn't be able to get 1 TB of bandwidth. But probably 20-30GB disk-space etc.

    Good luck in finding a new host
    I found a very nice host a while back, popped up multiple mirrored VPS (don't need managed, just cool HypverVM should things go wrong), and a separate reseller account for those that want cPanel goodies. So yeah, 4 X the bandwidth, 40 times the space, 4 separate physical locations for LESS than I was paying Hosting.com.
    I guess the wake up call was a good thing. If that incident wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't be where I am today.
    Geographically dispersed, mirrored and load balanced, and multi-honed. Mysterious ways things happen in young Jedi.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Cardiff - United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,569
    Quote Originally Posted by mugo View Post
    I found a very nice host a while back, popped up multiple mirrored VPS (don't need managed, just cool HypverVM should things go wrong), and a separate reseller account for those that want cPanel goodies. So yeah, 4 X the bandwidth, 40 times the space, 4 separate physical locations for LESS than I was paying Hosting.com.
    I guess the wake up call was a good thing. If that incident wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't be where I am today.
    Geographically dispersed, mirrored and load balanced, and multi-honed. Mysterious ways things happen in young Jedi.
    Hehe sounds awesome And I agree entirely - the force is strong with you

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
    Posts
    2,007
    Funny followup -

    Wow.

    I canceled my VPS with hosting dot com over 3 months ago. Found my old IP in some documentation, and hit it just for curiosity sake...

    It's still up. And serving. All data in tact. Hmmm.

    I never did get any reply from Hosting.com on my issue, other than "we don't know why this happened". They just dropped it completely. No reply to my tickets. Ever.
    This is the best signature in the world....Tribute!
    (It is not the best signature in the world, no. This is just a tribute)

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Posts
    2,253
    Quote Originally Posted by mugo View Post
    Funny followup -

    Wow.

    I canceled my VPS with hosting dot com over 3 months ago. Found my old IP in some documentation, and hit it just for curiosity sake...

    It's still up. And serving. All data in tact. Hmmm.

    I never did get any reply from Hosting.com on my issue, other than "we don't know why this happened". They just dropped it completely. No reply to my tickets. Ever.
    lol. Im glad your happy with your new host atleast. Are you still able to ssh into the old server?
    Leader of the new anti sig spamming club.

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