Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Industry Announcements : Providers and Network Outages and Updates : oktagone down? [Merged]

[~Sophie~]

It is with much regret I post this negative account on this board.

Unfortunately, I started hosting with Oktagone.net a few months ago. Since then, we have had nothing but trouble, downtime, rude, and unresponsive dealings with "Greg".

Besides the appalling downtime rates, the customer service is absolutely dispicable. For weeks, I have been sending emails - and have had no response.

Greg, is never contactable - he is only ever responsive when he needs to charge my credit card. I have tried for 2 weeks solid, to contact him on the phone number provided. I have also tried contacting the US Numbers, but they will not recognise number input from my phone, and thus the call hangs. Over, and over and over again.

Greg also tried to 'port us over' to a dedicated server without any consultation, and tried to illegally charge my credit card for a memory upgrade which was not authorised by me - I simply got an email stating that the transaction for the memory upgrade amount was declined.

We had initially authorised the charge, however he had transferred us to the Ensim server to avoid that charge, and cleary stated that in an email to me. He then tried to charge us for it, and show me old emails to justify his illegal actions.

They have now suspended my website without ANY email explaining why - their server is yet again down, so they take it out on their customers. All my members have is a page saying "Website is supended, please contact billing department" - so they think we haven't paid for our service. This makes my blood boil.

This company is the opitomy of bad service. They have cost me so much money - because of my downtime, and because of advertisers lost.

They now will not respond to my email requests - and will not give my database bacK

I am trying to move to a new host but without my database i have no chance.

[saj]

did u make backups of your site?

[~Sophie~]

double post.

[~Sophie~]

Hi,

Yes I did make backups - Unfortunately though, the last I made was a few weeks ago.

With 500 new members signing up per day, that means ALOT of lost data.

Yes stupid me - stupid me.

[Jason.NXH]

Well, if they don't give back your database. I guess you lost it

Thanks for your warning and hopefully everyone who reads this will note it!

[oktagone]

Sophie,

You have not requested your database from us, all you have done, is threaten us with Legal action.

Your site was suspended, because it has been causing load averages of 2.0+ for the past 4 months, of which we have been in constant contact with yourself (Shelly) and your partner David.

We upgraded the RAM on the server in the understanding you were going to pay a $50 fee to cover the upgrade, however you refused to pay it.

This has still to date not been paid, and, we suspended your account exactly 14 days after notifying you by email that such actions would be taken.

If you would like a copy of your database and site files, we are happy to give them to you, as your normal monthly fees are up to date, however, we will not allow your site to continue abusing such large CPU/Memory utilisation in a shared environment.

Your reseller account with us is still active, and i believe 3 other sites are still operating fully.

Greg

[~Sophie~]

No Greg, You didn't notify us that you would suspend the account. That is not true.

Its funny, in the past 3 weeks, we have tried to contact you - at least 100 times- but you are unavailable, but within 2 hours of posting this you are here?

I have tried to deal with you via email, but you are not willing to act professionally, You have left us no choice, but to persue legal action in regards to this issue.

We were not notified of anything, that is totally untrue - nowhere do I have an email from you since the time i discussed and proved to you that you were incorrect and charging my credit card unlawfully.

Your company has very bad business practises Greg, and you tell lies in order to get yourself out of sticky situations. Our site is NOT using the amounts of server load you have dreamed up - ever since the new caching was introduced the server loads have been right down, so your claims are unfounded and simply not true.

Your company needs an overhaul, the best place to start would be for you to firstly brush up on your social skills - you need to communicate better.

Secondly, you need to do a course in business practise, ethics, and law .

Thirdly, Untill you are better equipped to deal with genuine customers, and issues that arise, whilst employing ethical standards and good practise, I suggest you take some time off to reassess your business direction and goals.

[DDT]

Hope you guys get this worked out and you find a host will realistic plans and pricing and who communicates them to you-compared to your needs and use patterns-clearly. If you're running a big, high traffic forum, you need a host that is expecting to deliver those loads & traffic going in...not later as an upgrade.
Big-high traffic forum owners tend to post these type experiences a lot. Often because of the "CPU-memory" clause. Those forums sometimes require more specialized hosting. (and no, we don't do big traffic-high load forum hosting for really big forums...just an observation)
If you keep going with 500 sign-ups a day you may need a dedicated for that one before too long.

[~Sophie~]

Thanks DDT - Although, I liked your un-edited post better


We don't have a forum - we serve dynamic (cached) graphics which are updated daily - our traffic is plentiful, but constant minor hits, the problem occurs when the logs are being processed - and this was not an issue at all prior to this unexpected suspension without warning or explanation.

Regardless, this isn't a sour grapes vent.. this is an exhausted, very reasonable customer who has had enough of being treated like she doesn't exist.

Trust me in saying that I am a very patient person, and unless i was at my wits end i would definitely not be here saying the things I have about a company like this.

I actually feel a duty to tell others about it, and I believe the said company should be accountable for treating its customers so terribly, if only I had found this site prior to joining Oktagone, I wouldn't need to be here complaining about it at all.

[Jason.NXH]

Sophie, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of great web hosts out there who will provide great services. If you're interested in a new host, give the Host Quote feature a try or do some research in the Hosting Offers forum. (That's if you're looking to move)

Good luck with your current situation and I hope all can be resolved

[~Sophie~]

Thanks Jason. I agree, there must be some good hosts out there, Heading up to quote feature now.

Greg has since contacted me and is working towards a solution, which is good. Hopefully we can put it to rest asap.

[ldcdc]

Heading up to quote feature now.

Do not trust hosts blingly. They're not screened by anyone, so you must do your own research: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=

I usually recommend http://findmyhosting.com/advancedsearch.asp as a tool that can broaden ones choices. Proper research is still needed though.

Greg has since contacted me and is working towards a solution, which is good. Hopefully we can put it to rest asap.

Yes, it would be great if things would be straightened out.

I am trying to move to a new host but without my database i have no chance.

That serves as a proof that you should always have a reasonably recent back-up on hand so that moving in emergency situations won't be a problem.

Good luck Sophie!

[DDT]

Glad you got to see the unedited version. It was more accurate & detailed but I got my first ever WHT warning the other day (3 strikes & you're out) and they have never responded to my support request about why other people post very similar thing but I got a "warning".
I detest rules breakers so I have never done so intentionally but they say I did so I had second thoughts and edited the post here to be extra careful.
I guess the mods are watching me because I have been critical of some of their policies & features like Host Quote & HostVoice (no details this time, critical is a good enough description).
So I took some of the obvious facts out of my original post. They are there but could be construed a a rules violation since I was going only by what their web site said and have never personally dealt with them.

[ldcdc]

I guess the mods are watching me because I have been critical of some of their policies & features like Host Quote & HostVoice (no details this time, critical is a good enough description).

You may criticize those features if you find them faults. The moderators do not own the forums, so they won't have a grudge on you because of that.

[eSited]

I've been with OktaGone for like a month, I don't even wanted to talk about it my *EXTREMELY* bad experience.

I think there's only 1 support guy behind their company, Greg.
The support takes like 24 hours to respond (Email).. sometimes when you ask them a question on aim, no respond, even though when I know they came back from idle.

1 More thing.. *Shutting down your server, format, not telling you, no proof*