I start to HATE Web Hosts
I am not usually using MSN Instant Messenger but yesterday I signed in to talk to my brother. I spoke to him a bit and then I went to another room. When I came back to the computer 5 minutes later I see the following on the screen:
Stephen J says:
u owe me for hosting bro if u still want it ur year is up
Stephen J says:
ur account*]
Stephen J says:
www.axeq.com and www.50textlinks.com
Stephen J says:
ok im deleting ur accounts
Stephen J says:
thanks for using kvchosting
Stephen J says:
i hope you have backed up your sites
Jim Westergren says:
Hi
Stephen J says:
hi
Jim Westergren says:
U there?
Read the rest of the chat session here, totally unaltered and incredible.
On the 10/18/2005 I paid KVCHosting to host my 2 sites for 1 year each, that is until 10/18/2006 - I still had 7 months left. He deleted my sites (one PR4 and one PR5 making $50 a week.) and I lost 6 weeks of database as I stupidly did not do the database backup more regularly. That is about records of 60 clients paying for links in axeq.com which I now have to find a solution to solve. Fortunately the search engines are caching the sites and I can somehow reconstruct the database and otherwise contact the clients from the paypal invoices I kept that paid for the links now lost.
Did you realize that KVCHosting permanently deleted two sites of a client for the only reason that he did not answer quickly on the MSN? Have you EVER heard of a more bad host? And he had my e-mail but never sent a single e-mail.
Read the rest of the chat session if you didn’t yet.
His real name is Stephen Jurawleff, he lives in North Bay, Ontario, Canada.
Some other bad hosts:
Surftown, same company as B-one (Swedish and Danish):
I had an Arcade Site on surftown. In their promotion they write: “unlimited bandwidth”.
After some months I went up to over 10 Gig/month bandwidth on the Arcade Site which I had spent a lot of time on.
Then suddenly Surftown support instead of sending a polite e-mail to please reduce bandwidth which I would have done by hotlinking the swf files from another server (which I also did later) they opened up my site in their system and deleted the 5 most played games from the MySQL database with all data in the MySQL columns about those games - without any kind of notification or warning. I could luckily with some time and working with SEs cache pages reconstruct the database.
ParHosting.com
One week he upgrades the server which causes downtime. Next week he moves the server and I have to change DNS. The week after that he moves server again and I have to change DNS again. The next weeks there are 3-4 downtimes. It took 3 business days for suport to answer my post in their support forum.
MyGigHost.com
I had 3-4 sites with them. Suddenly one day all accounts closed down without warning or notification. After some desperate searching on forums etc. I found a thread in which the hoster wrote: “I have to go to university”.
Webb-Hotellet.com (swedish)
Doesn’t answer e-mails, you always have to call them on a mobile. My account there went full and I wanted to upgrade and get more space. The site broke down as the MySQL db went bigger than the space limit and he did not answer my e-mails …
—
If you are a Pro SEO with 30+ web sites that are supposed to be on different IPs for best effect but you have to have cheap accounts, you can’t pay $10 a month to 30+ accounts (that is $300 a month in hosting fees) how do you do? And you can’t just move sites all the time as the site looses trust with Google. I think it is impossible … and I HATE it. Each week one of your sites are down or have an issue.
EDIT: May 3, 2006
And another one … :
“UltraNet Hosting - Where hosting dreams come true.”
“Im sorry for the lack of response. I sent an email out to everyone. ANyway, the server was shutdown as i missed the bills while i was away at BCT (Basic Combat Training for the Army. Im sorry, if you would like the backups please pm me back and i will refund $6 as you still had 3 months of service left. I will refund when i have full access to a computer.”
Do I need to say more?
Jim Westergren is a company owner from Sweden who currently lives in Bolivia with his wife. Some of his interests are SEO, web development, writing and
Well i have my site hiifii.com at 3ix.com. they are good hosts and my site is also a small one.but i dont like moving it to my new hosting.
The problem with 3ix is that forum suddenly goes of sometimes and when i check my cpanel i dont even find my database.
I feel like - oh , shit why didn’t i take a backup
but then its back after 15minutes. Mailed them many tiems and they say - Hello sir, we dont say any downtime of your site.
wtf!
ALL HOSTS ARE DA SAME LoL
Damn!!
that must have been terrible.
and to think what a stupid and ******* host.
forgot to add,
if u ever in need of a good host and wouldnt mind paying a bit more than those cheapies,
checkout lunarpages or go with dreamhost.
Better go with asmallorange.com they are the best hosters.
But you need to book in advance, as their slots are booked very fast.
Thank you for the recommendations. I am now moving to royaltyhosting.com for 50textlinks.com and axeq.com based on a recommendation from a known SEO, cheap and instant activation. Let’s see if they are good.
Ah that is why I saw you popping on and off MSN like that!
And people think Godaddy sucks here, I have not once had an issue with Godaddy so far, if you choose your own unique IP for each they even treat you as first class even if you are not paying for that typs of service.
That must make your blood boil, good luck. Some day you will be able to buy or rent your own servers.
Hi Aaron,
I had no issue with Godaddy but I have heard the rant.
I could buy/rent servers but then I don’t get my sites on unique c-class IPs which is the reason why I have 30+ sites.
Anyway. I am moving the sites now. Hope to speak to you soon Aaron, I am kind of busy now, lol.
Agree with you mate, gotta hate those hosts!
Feel sorry for you. Hope you get it solved soon
Hi Jim,
You can grab a dedicated server, and indeed have dozens of C Class IP’s. It just comes down to whether the ISP is setup for it.
As for being screwed, it’s an unfortunate fact of life with cheap hosting. I’ve been there myself.
Hope your current provider knows what they’re about.
Cheers,
JL
Hi John,
That is good to know. But the process if moving 30 sites is not worth it …
As for now the sites are up again and I found some good hosts.
Thanks.
Whoa! What a jerk host! Thanks for the heads up, Jim.
Dude!
Hehe! I know how you feel! And yes it sucks.. Bigtime!!!
Good thing that u mention all the bad apples since I kind of use a lot of different hosts myself.
I managed to avoid all of the ones you thougt were bad..
Well except our Swedish (Surftown) BTW I think they have matured a bit since your arcade incident took place.
See ya!
Woah, for a minute there I thought the host was your brother, wait I mean, your brother was your host … ah you get what i mean.
Sorry this happened, Jim. That’s terrible, that guy has no business ethics whatsoever. I’ve had many bad hosting experiences but this takes the cake.
Lol from the way he writes he sounds like a 12 year old kid with a reseller account with a larger hosting provider. Even if he doesn’t operate like this he’s a total amateur. It’s just common sense for the hosting provider to make frequent backups incase the hardware goes pop.
I’m just looking at his site, he clearly doesn’t have a clue. Giving users root access on a shared hosting account? is he crazy? With root access you could wipe the entire server!
I work for a web hosting company and we make daily backups of sites and databases for disaster recovery. Admittedly, we do charge nearly double what his costs are, but you know what they say - you get what you pay for
Anyways… go easy on web hosts, we’re not all this bad you know
Thanks for the comments all.
Andyk,
Yes, that is good to know. I believe there are good hosts, just that when you work as an SEO you don’t want to think about hosts and you only notice when something is not working - not when all is ok.
I might check you out once I need a new account.
Do well.
I feel terrible reading that story.
Next time when you purchase web hosting, make sure you are dealing with a legal and incorporated business. From that document, that individual seems to be just a kid who needs money fast and trying to force you to pay it asap.
A good web host also has a price-freezing guarantee.
If you make profit from your website, my advice is NOT to risk hosting with “cheap” hosts, I am sure KVC is not the only one doing this. Unfortunately due to the affordable prices of reseller accounts and dedicated servers, this kind of web host appears from time to time.
Anything below $50/year is not recommended because it is not realistic; it does not cover the costs.
You were paying $1.20/month to KVC Hosting, you should never expect having a good service when you pay such a low price.
Take it as a lesson, you know what to expect from this kind of offer from now on.
Best of luck with yout site, just followed a link from HHO and looks like I have interesting stuff to read here for the next 10 minutes at least!
Ah such a bad host i guess. Thats why i do not list my msn or my yahoo id cause i think buisness should be done via emails only or via live support system atleast that way you can sue the company cause people do no believe msn chats for that fact. But jim why do you pay for like a year in advance? I personally prefer monthly payments as this way there are less hassles of keeping tracks of who is making payments or not.
Lol he deleted your site. Geez who told you to go with that hosting anyways? Why dont you take legal action against him. Cause he pasted the tos stating nowhere that he has the right to terminate the account, suspending is different then terminating. And i do think that if your liking your hosting you should atleast post some good things about them at review sites if you do not plan to upgrade your accounts with them. But what stephen did was definately illegal. Plus to be frank almost every host makes backups. Hell even i say your responsible for your backups in my TOS, but i unofficially backup sites everyweek on offshore machine not for my sake but for customers in events like hdd failures that might occur ( no one can predict failures). I never backup my site though :).
Hey why dont you contact bbb ? or maybe fbi and nail him as you said in your convo.
And good luck with the law suite.
Oh my jim i think you should get the testimonial removed also now cause i just saw this :
I have two of my web sites hosted by KVC Hosting and I must say that I am
happy with their service. Despite their low rates they have a good support with issues promptly dealt with.
Steven has been my support and I know that he is highly intrested in making
sure his clients are pleased. For a person running a high number of web sites with limited time, this is invaluable. I am looking forward to see KVC Hosting getting even better.
Thanks a lot.
Jim Westergren, CEO of JW Webbdesign
SEO Professional and Web Designer
Not you too Jim! I had his reseller set up all ready, then when the payment date had come for the year, he said he didn’t want it becuase I was too ‘rude’. Now I am not rude! He had had 2 weeks free hosting on a reseller with over 20GB space… and he didn’t even pay for what he had taken, ahh what a idiot! That lost me the hosting cost for the month.. ahh what a idiot!
As for MyGigHost.com… the owner is a lazy bum! He is still in the web hosting/service circle, to my shock! I used to work for MyGigHost.com as a support guy… I was so shocked at how things worked there that I started my own web host… and I think I have done a bit better than him!
At least you know Jim that your sites are safe with me!
Greg
Thanks for all comments.
Greg,
you are one of the few hostings that I can truly recommend.
Also a1whs.com is good but I have not used them for enough time to make a valid judgement but I belive they are good.
Thanks Jim but its a start that my company has started to put some good impression on people. And i have got some recent yearly clients and that reflects that i have been doing my job :). I might be lazy at times but not irresponsible. So i hope you wont be disappointed jim :). And yes i agree that 3 months time is not long enough to make and reviews for any company, reviews need to be of atleast 5 or 6 months experience.
Oh by the way Greg dont you think that your site puts fear into customers mind ?
Anyways i need to push some of my sites and get higer alexa ranking is there any topic here that i can refer to or pay some guy to do the work?
I know what you mean about really bad hosts that leave a customer starnded. The NY Noc, http://www.thenynoc.com/, has done the same thing to me. They have destroyed all my records with no warning and will not respond to any of my requests. This company has no business on the internet and cares nothing about the customer. Hopefully this will help someone avoid a costly mistake in the future.
I know I’m a bit late to this, but wanted to comment anyway… Over 10 years I’ve had a LOT of bad hosts. Right now my 2 best shared hosts are Midphase and Lunarpages, both of them being cheap and reliable. I also have a VPS with Liquidweb which runs well, apart from the datacentre being struck by lightning today
Price isn’t everything, I’ve had expensive hosts (with good reputations) that were terrible too. I know someone else already pointed out that you can have a wide range of I.P.s on your own server so long as the host has provisions for that - it’s definitely a worthwhile thing to do, because hosting at a bunch of cheap & nasty companies just for the I.P. benefits will end up costing you more time and money eventually. Good Luck.
Thanks Leo.
I finally got what I needed. A hosting package from gotwebhost.com that gives me accounts on 15 different c-class IPs. Now I don’t have this problem anymore.
I stopped trust any of Web Hosts Companies. I also stopped to believe finally I will find that only ONE. One year - 5 different companies. I hate it too.
You pay peanuts you get monkeys!
John
Professional Hosting
http://www.xpertdomains.net
Having had my bouts with a bunch of deadbeat hosts, I have decided to create a directory and forum to promote good hosts and weed out the bad. I just opened http://www.hotdealhosting.com recently after 3 months of programming to try to build a solid web hosting directory that can be trusted. A small contribution to this growing problem but maybe it will help some people avoid the problems I have had.
Lol, thats sad
As you always say to me “Always do backup of your db” i do but do you?
Well cu sometime bro
Owner of - http://www.pbtorrents.com/
Hi Måns!
Yes, I do that regularly.
Cu!
Glad to hear you have found a host that meets your needs and has not left you high and dry. Most reliable hosts will always offer money back guarantees, prorated refunds along with a knowledge of what they are selling and being able to recognize the requirements of each customer and the ability to work with a customer that plans on leaving the host. I will admit no host likes seeing a customer transfer services from them, but if you can maintain a professional demeanor you have a better chance of getting them again as a customer. Good luck with your new hosting provider.
Hi,
KVC you are talkin g about has been closed and saled up to friend of mine. Now it’s a new company which started Spetember 2008.
So thank you please to referr that you are talking something which closed up since 2008.
Thank you