ANOTHER BAD WEBHOST, A GOOD ONE FOLLOWS

Actually, a bad webhost gone worse, and here is my story, in hopes that other consumers can read and be helped by it. The lengthy contents that follow are more for point of reference than for entertainment so perhaps read what is here in steps, stages, so as not to tax your patience. The situations described are taxing enough -- and it's work to read about these down situations, I realize.

INTRODUCTION

Last November (2004), I had a bad experience with Hosting Matters (no link from me). Not as to their services, because I never got that far with them, but with the few individuals who comprise that host -- I signed up for an account, they billed me more than what they'd detailed on their account signup page, I inquired about it afterward (and did so nicely), they became outraged and launched a sort of peck-fest afterward that was alarming in it's emotional imbalance and intensity (multiple emails akin to a really rough bunch of folks harassing someone on a street corner, complete with insults and pejoratives, that continued long after I asked them to stop communicating with me -- it made no sense to the situation, their level of antagonism, and thus, I describe their responses as "emotionally imbalanc[ed]"). It was a bad experience such that I withdrew the account request after only an hour or so after initiation, enough time to receive from them many (as in, many) offensive emails -- got a refund but was left with a domain I needed to relocate and quickly and I made a rash decision about another host and that's the story of this thread.

(Read about the bad experiences of others, similar to my own, with Hosting Matters.)

I looked over a few Google searches in my naive attempts to identify a reliable and ethical organization to host my domain (this one, you are here on an area of that domain). When relatively new to webhosting, as I was at that time -- and knew only a few others with more wisened experiences about webhosting -- there are really just a few places to turn for host names, information and such and the rest remains a case of instinct and practicalities. As in, the same public references are available to everyone with internet accesss and so we all resort to the same information as consumer and just start reading and exploring websites.

But, you can't know who you are working with on the human level until shared time and experiences transpire. With Hosting Matters, I was led into their account process after reading their name on other sites I was familiar with as a reader of those sites, although not familiar with the site owners/authors particularly beyond their site contents. Hosting Matters was just a name and therefore, just a case of reading a label but knowing nothing about who was involved in the specific hosting services and companies otherwise.

Where Hosting Matters is concerned, I found out early as to what I consider to be an objectionable organization, such that I could not anticipate engaging in a business relatinship with them. There are a few hosting organizations that a customer has little reason if ever a reason to interact with personally (no need to call them or otherwise try to correspond about a problematic issue) and as long as their technical services are reliable and you are provided with what they've promised they'd provide in their solicitations and account terms, all's fine; but, with most websites and their server hosts, it is necessary up to a point to make human contact with the server personnel/representatives for technical, billing, account services. And, about Hosting Matters, their offensiveness was pronounced about a routine customer inquiry so early on that it defied my instinctual and life experiences, such that there could be no anticipation of a reasonable relationship to follow. No point in even trying to pursue a relationship, was the point.

STORY BEGINS

There I was last early November, with a few hours to find a place to host my domain and to which I could relocate my website pages (extensive content already created, already hosted on Yahoo WebHosting who did and does not provide a Movable Type installation and which account I'd already closed a few hours earlier based upon the initially intended relocation to Hosting Matters -- I've since diverged the content into two distinct domains hosted on two different hosting plans with two different companies but that resolution wasn't at that time something I'd considered and I had a time problem with where to send my site contents and quickly if for only to save a lot of work that wasn't copied to a harddrive that was also scheduled to be replaced in a matter of days in early November...I learned a lot of technical workarounds later but at that time, was not aware of too many options other than to find another webhost).

So, after the abrupt and strange hostility from Hosting Matters, and from Google search results otherwise, I searched through a CNET section about webhosts ("Most Popular Hosting Plans").

And from that section on CNET, I blindly called three listed there, discovered two out of the three had unsatisfactory telephone personality, so literally opted to go with the one of the three who had the most well mannered telephone support -- and that was a company called "Web Intellects" (no link from me but they're easy to search out).

I purchased an account with Web Intellects for $24.95 a month and billing began on November 09, 2004 for a month-to-month webhosting plan that was to begin that day, and ensuing, ongoing billing was identified to me to be "the ninth of each month" for another month ahead (the ninth equated with the first day of a billing and service month, and would recur on the ninth of the following months for same).

So far, so good. Nice and polite telephone support.

I use an expensive domain registrar (melbourneit.com) but for all the money they charge every year to maintain my .com domains (I have two but only one of them -- where you are now -- was of issue at that time (because the other one, created a few days after these 11/09/04 activities, was and remains well situated with Yahoo WebHosting and remains worry free as long customer service isn't needed [Yahoo is very poor in that regard but at least they provide a wealth of self helps on their site such that you can generally find what you need independent of any telephone support]), anyway, for all the money that melbourneit.com charges to maintain my domains, they do prove their worth when you need changes or revisions to a domain they manage because I can no sooner request a Name Server change than they effect it, instantaneously.

It was a few hours later on 11/09/05 and I redirected my Name Server to Web Intellects after signing on as a new customer with the 11/09/04 start date for my account and billing. I loggod on as a new customer and found an obtuse, very nonstraightforward series of "control panels" that lead to one area, then another, then another...it's an overly obtuse array of tiny type links but you can find what you need to accomplish and how if you devote a lot of initial patience and so I did: find what I needed but had to devote a great deal of patience to do so. No "CPanel," no Plesk on the shared server accounts, multiple control panels for areas of the same account, all of which require another site destination and several of which require another logon.

SERVERS DOWN AND OFTEN

First there was one site downage at Web Intellects. Then another. Then another, another, another, another, and another, and...it continued so for many months, site would be down, I'd go do something else, return a while later, site would be available, I'd take it in stride, trying to be patient. After the very bad experience with Hosting Matters' personalities, I sorta' closed down. I'd had some initial nice telephone helps from Web Intellects in setting up my site and in navigating their several control panels, but about anything that made mention of any customer observations, I was not eager to share much of anything.

Such that, I allowed and tolerated server-caused site loss while hosted on Web Intellects far past the point that most anyone else would. Eventually, after many months of the $24.95 a month charges to my credit card and the ongoing site down times, I wrote a "Support Ticket," asking why the site was down when once among many ongoing times it was again, down.

Since the site was going dark at recurring intervals around almost every twenty-four hour cycle, and would remain dark for usually five minutes at a time, by the time I'd write Support and they'd read the Ticket I'd written, the site would be again available.

Web Intellects technical support would respond, "your site appears fine (working well, is available, otherwise saying that they could see the site and had no notice of any down times) so please let us know if there's anything else we can help you with," and would then ignore my (polite, all) inquiries asking why the site was experiencing the regularly recurring down problem, and if it could be anticipated to conclude, such that whatever was causing the problem might be repaired and if so, when -- to avoid me writing ongoing Tickets about the problem.

Mostly I received a series of responses, "your site is up now, so..."

I looked more closely at my site stats at that point and would see coinciding absent traffic during the very same periods of time that I'd witnessed my site being down, and during which I could access the rest of the internet -- it wasn't a connection issue but an issue of my site function not being available or going down also during my attempts to use MqSQL: update MySQL, site went down, remained down for five, ten minutes, return later, site's again up, but the same thing was occurring over and over and over again and throughout every twenty-four hours whether I accessed MqSQL or not, but always after trying to update MqSQL.

I'd ask again, same uninformative response. Eventually I received a few comments in a few Tickets explaining that their server had undergone an upgrade and "the problem will not continue and we will monitor your site..."

DOWN TIMES CONTINUE, NO EXPLANATION, NO CORRECTION

The site problem continued: down at 11:59 P.M., up at 12:04 A.M., then again down at 3:58 A.M., up at 4:07 A.M., then down at 6:00 A.M., up at 6:10 A.M., etc, round the clock and round the clock and round and round and...

I'd write another Ticket, receive the same rote response, no other information. I referred to my site traffic stats when it was again suggested that Web Intellects was not aware of any site traffic -- going so far as to write to me that they noticed site traffic when the site was clearly down. And the down times were now growing in length, growing to recurring twenty-minute intervals in every day and more.

I eventually wrote, to the effect, "you advised that your server had been upgraded such that the problem causing the site to go down at recurring intervals during every day has been remedied, but the recurring down times for my site continue, so would you please try to resolve whatever is causing this problem, or explain when that might happen so I won't have to open Support Tickets with every site loss notice and rely on you repairing whatever the problem is...now worries (was nice about this but persistent)." I always thanked them for their "help."

UNEXPLAINED SERVER PROBLEM CONTINUES

Twice that I recall, perhaps three occasions, Web Intellects explained that they'd "moved my site to another server so the problem should not recur" and yet it would and did and continued...as often as I'd visit my site in any day at any range of hours, there would be a few of those recurring site down experiences that would last five, ten minutes each and eventually grew to over two hours just last month at the worst.

Web Intellects never explained what caused that last problem and never offered a credit, a refund, no apology, no offers to compensate. Just silence. I wrote and asked and asked very nicely what the problem was...silence.

BILLING CONTINUES, SERVICES FAILING

Web Intellects continued to bill me $24.95 every month -- sometimes the ninth, sometimes the eleventh of a month.

Trojan attachments increased to a very huge volume through their email service and when I inquired about THAT, was told to delete my catch-all mail account (had already) and heard it explained that their mail was handled on the same servers as were sites hosted (no separate, dedicated mail server), and that, when I remarked about the highly recognizable nature of the trojans they were transmitting -- not like they were unusual or difficult to counter given the familiarity of the trojans themselves -- was told that their antivirual definitions were dated and they were waiting for updates but none at present...and that was last month.

Site continued to go dark and as of April became a loss predictably: down for five/ten minutes at a time at four, five, six times in recurring intervals like clockwork each and every day.

I began writing Technical Support tickets more conincentally to each and every down experience that I witnessed -- another domain I was hosting as a favor to someone wrote many times that his site and mine were down and remained so for longer than I'd witnessed and I'd receive the emails from this friend who is in another time zone that would refer to times of any day that I wasn't online. I decided that I should not continue to indulge Web Intellects and that the site loss was abnormal beyond the tolerable and explained to them nicely that it wasn't acceptable service and was in need of remedy, that they'd earlier mentioned that it had been remedied, was not, remained a failure of server function and had to be corrected.

I decided to stop permitting the host failures by way of not mentioning them -- by not making objection to the ongoing site loss, it set some sort of silent permission that only resulted in the growing problem. I began to wonder if Web Intellects was simply stringing me alone. I received ongoing Support Ticket responses from Web Intellects, to the effect that, "your site is available now so if there's anything else we can help you with, let us know..." They'd even begun ignoring my specific questions and requests.

ANTAGONISM AS TECHNCIAL SUPPORT

Obviously, Web Intellects was, to be blunt, blowing me off. They continued to take their monthly fees but provided no information -- not that they had provided much, if anything, in times past -- about their ongoing server failures: explained nothing, offered no credits, adjustments, refunds, no compensation of any sort for the obvious problems. Problems another domain on my account witnessed from another time zone by way of another service provider and hardware and all that. The very idea that the problem was nonexistent and not recurring as extensively as it had been was nonsense.

ISSUES CULMINATE, TECHNICAL SUPPORT FAILS

Early yesterday morning (Monday, May 09, 2005), I anticipated completing collaborative work on an area of my site and so set about changing my passwords inorder to allow another person to logon with me from a remote location, which, of course, required changing passwords affecting MySQL and several other areas of my account and site management with Web Intellects.

The site downage that I've explained here occured, in my end user experience, both independently of any use of my site and also in conjunction with access and use of MySQL and I'd already communicated that to Web Intellects many times in my Support Tickets, without any comment from Web Intellects about that.

When MySQL was accessed/updated/republished/whatever, then again a second time, the site would fail. And remain failed (down, dark, offline, not available) for a full five minutes (sometimes ten), like clockwork...as in, I could stare at the clock and see the full five minutes to the dot pass and the site would return.

When it was down beyond five minutes, sometimes it would hit the clocked amount of ten full minutes and again recur, but the worst was the down time that extended to a full half-hour on many occasions and then began growing to the worst last month that reached past two full hours of site downage and in midday. And about which Web Intellects had been notified -- and never explained later, again, silence, ongoing billing, no remarks.

I hate complaining but obviously there was and is a problem there. I do not mind paying any host (or anyone) $24.95 a month or even more for good services and reliable performance. Fix performance problems or refund a customer's payments, or at least apologize and offer some sort of compensation that makes the loss of services less of a loss to a paying customer. Even a "sorry" would help.

But, instead, Web Intellects grew increasingly antagonistic and the site issues, while dismissals of my inquiries and requests was and has been the increasing norm. A few of the telephone calls for service met with agitated responses and it was then that I knew that Web Intellects was a failed host.

As when I'd called them about the viral attachments a month or so ago: technician was irritable with me for complaining, while what it was was and is that their antivirual definitions are outdated. Complain about that to someone else, but certainly don't complain to customers who object to daily doses of dozens of viral laden email attachments (I use Norton Professional, which effectively prevented those viral attachments from being downloaded but Norton also identifies the sender and the problem attachment so there's a log of objections available by which the issues can be substantiated).

NOW IT'S ALL BAD

Back to the password-change issue of early morning yesterday: changing a password anywhere prevents access to the cgi-bin -- primarily, the Movable Type program install, for my specific purposes on my site's contents. Can't FTP a file to that area of the site contents afterward, since the newer password disallows access to the previous password and vice versa.

Once earlier when this occured (a few months ago), I called Web Intellects and they effected the password change from the server-side of things in a matter of moments. Fine, but what's the problem with me doing that using site access methods? No explanation, just a server-side reset that had to be again reset, all and any passwords, afterward resulting in the same problem in loop fashion, and the only solution was to leave passwords reset to basic reset configuration, thus defeating the purpose of passwords.

So, wrote yesterday early morning that they'd have to again reset the password, server side, or explain -- if they "would, please" how to accomplish that since nothing known to me allowed access to cgi-bin once a password was changed (in any order, and, also, that blocked an FTP to the cgi-bin, so I could not access the cgi-bin files by any means once a password change was begun in any other area, or vice versa starting with the database first). The Movable Type program has to log into the MySQL database and when the password is changed, the MT program can't accomplish a logon. Thus, can't access MT inorder to use MT and can't change the password in MT unless you can logon. And, using FTP is not possible to effect a file change in MT because you can't logon to do that.

Equals: something beyond my control as a user as per what I know how to do without having server access.

SMARMY IS AS SMARMY DOES

So, about the Ticket request I sent early this morning about this (now, another) recurring problem, Web Intellects technical guy ("Josh") wrote back smarmy comments ("you just don't know how to use the program") and when my caps lock key was in place such that I could read what I was typing (tiny 4pt. type in their online Ticket process display), smarmy techncial guy ("Josh") wrote back, "don't use your caps lock key, it's very rude."

No, don't write smarmy comments to a consumer about your own petulent intolerances, Josh. That would be a smarter thing to try. Because, "Josh" appears to be of the mind that technical support means grammar and etiquette lessons and reading the minds of customers. And, after "Josh"'s ongoing dismissals about my site availability over the history of this account with Web Intellects, the one thing I would have appreciated at that moment would have been techncial assistance from "Josh" and not having to further indulge "Josh"'s issues. It's a very poor experience when support is used to insult and abuse those requesting support -- fix the techncial problems and no one will ever have to bother "Josh" again, so seems to me his reasoning is not only insulting to reasonable questions (!) but also self defeating, causing yet more of that awful work for "Josh" that he seems to resent quite so intensely, along with a customer who he has failed completely up to that point.

Is this even an issue? Does this really matter? Aren't there other things that a server level technician should be concerned about? No, it's a case to "Josh" that my CAPS LOCK KEY was engaged so I could read what I was typing, all three lines/thirty words or so of what I typed.

Hey, "Josh," what about that server? Hey, "Josh," what about the site failures? Hey, "Josh," what about the password glitches? Hey, "Josh," it's not really my CAPS LOCK KEY, now is it, "Josh."

So, I called at 9:00 A.M. (close enough) yesterday after customer service hours began and a very angry guy (not "Josh") answered the technical support line, insisting before I even said anything other than my name, "there's nothing else we can do for you, we can't help you, we can't do anything more to help you, there's nothing more we can do to help you, we can't help you..." and I had to interrupt the guy with a louder voice than his, "Calm down! Will you just calm down, take a breath, listen to what I am saying first?" Guy continued with his "can't help you" litany and I asked for a Supervisor. "Josh" came on the line and began his rendition of the "there's nothing else we can do to help you, we can't help you, there's nothing else we can do to help you..."

I made the same interruption of Josh and tried to explain that I'd again had to change the password and again was frozen out, and that his earlier change was transmitted via a public forum of my password and was, therefore, not really a password at all and would have to be again reset, and I'd tried, again, and was again frozen out of the MT program in the cgi-bin...and he'd have to now again make that server-side password change because I wasn't going to again transmit a password by publicly accessible process.

Have they been "helping" me? Is a failing site ongoing without explanation, without refund or even apology "helping" me? No, it isn't and so their litany is mysteriously odd -- although odd I can tolerate, just not services failing and continuing to fail and no one making any technical sense about why or how to remedy the failures with effectiveness.

I can understand losing patience with anyone but about me, what problem have I ever presented to Web Intellects? I've used something like twenty percent maximum of my bandwidth and disk space, I have no objectionable content on their servers (or elsewhere), my account is paid regularly. And yet their servers fail and -I- am the problem?

No, I wasn't and am not. I told "Josh" that "(he) (could) make all the attitudinal remarks (he) want(ed) to other customers, but not to (me)" and that I was going to close my account as soon as I could relocate it elsewhere and I hung up the phone -- he did manage to reset my password for me server-side before I hung up, but the entire series of events was just abusive. Memories of Hosting Matters stomp-the-customer fest.

Something about being dismissed without even being heard and by someone who is taking money for services they are not providing reliably is too offensive to me as a consumer.

A NEW HOST

So, I found another host. AQHost.com and by way of the Six Apart website that now makes mention of a group of hosts that provide a Movable Type licensed install along with hosting and ongoing upgrades of MT included with accounts. Most of them offer limited storage and bandwidth accounts but sufficient stats to accommodate most blogs, but AQHost offers, additionally, full feature hosting plans and I successfully purchased a combination of services from them: a licensed copy of the MT program install with ongoing upgrades by them of that program as they become available, with the addition of generous storage, unlimited domain hosting, generous bandwidth, cron jobs, unlimited databases, CPanel customer controls and much more.

Even greater, AQHost accomplished a full MT install of the current edition (3.16), the migration of all my existing site content with installation on one of their servers and all that in about six hours long distance: start to go, fully completed and without incident beyong a second install of the MT program because the Name Server changes took place sooner than the host anticipated. Melbourneit.com -- that expensive domain registrar -- effected an immediate Name Server change by noon today and it took them all of about ten minutes to do so.

THE FINAL BASH, BILLING FOR SERVICES NOT PROVIDED

Returning to the gloom, Web Intellects: my billing date with them BEGAN on the ninth of the startup month for a full month's hosting services. And has been paid to them on the ninth or the eleventh of every month following, depending upon business versus weekend days. Today is the May 10, 2005 (05/10/05), a Tuesday.

And my site was fully off Web Intellects server by my request before 1:30 P.M. today, Tuesday, 05/10/05. (Site contents earlier migrated as copies, then I returned before 1:30 P.M. to Web Intellects to request my account be closed, all services terminated.)

I received another smarmy, attitudinal email from Web Intellects a few hours later, saying that I would not be receiving any refund and that "(I) should have closed this account two days ago."

"Two days ago" was Sunday. Sunday, May 08, 2005, Mother's Day.

They're reasoning that because I didn't close my account Sunday (?) that they are now going to keep a full month's hosting payment ($24.95) that they submitted today for services they are not providing for services I have not requested for a service period I am not using, for a service period during which I have no content on their servers, and during which I have no account with them. At least, I guess that's their intention, given the smarminess of the email, advising me that after today, there would be no further billing but that "(I) should have closed the account two days ago" (implying further billing).

I had no long-term contract with Web Intellects. I purchased a month-to-month service plan from them and was told that I could "cancel at any time". So I cancelled and they're now suggesting that they're keeping their profit from a billing today for another month because I didn't cancel Sunday, "two days ago", when my billing date is today had I remained their customer. Which I did not.

THIEVES AND SERVERS

Thieves and servers. Thieves with servers. Billing for services that aren't provided, not issuing credits for loss of service...and then the unnecessary antagonism.

If you're paid a salary and you don't show up, you've got money in pocket that you didn't earn and don't merit. You need to return the money, at least report it and allow somene to gift you the free dollars or else request it be returned. If a company bills or charges for services that they have not provided, that's a theft. It's just as much a theft as someone lifting your wallet.

They failed, I didn't. So they're taking an extra $24.95 from my credit card because they're resentful. And have unrealible servers and out of date antiviral definitions. So they resent me. Some people you should just never be nice to, at least, by their standards. Negativity and customer dissatisfaction is not worth anyone grubbing and arguing over $24.95; I wrote that they should keep it and use it to buy something for themselves that would help them feel better. Then I wrote that I disagreed with their actions based upon the appearance of dishonesty and did not have my agreement that they take another $24.95 (or any other amount, ever) from my credit card. It's not the $24.95, it's the appearance of dishonesty that bothers me, and is offensive.

Avoid Web Intellects.