From here.
Boring story about what happened to dtman.com over the last couple days.
Edited By GORDON on 1118552246
The Story with the Host
Speaking of invite.net, on a whim I went looking for reviews about them.
Looks like I wasn't alone in thinking they had become complete idiot assholes:
http://www.webhostingratings.com/plans/Invite_Internet-Reviews.html#b3034
Looks like I wasn't alone in thinking they had become complete idiot assholes:
http://www.webhostingratings.com/plans/Invite_Internet-Reviews.html#b3034
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
I've had a lot of problems with hosts. I moved to Lunarpages back in January and haven't had a (host related) problem since.
When I ran out of bandwidth they really helped me out, and even spotted me an extra 16GB of transfer. I screwed up my forums once and they where really great about helping me fix it.
The last company I had was Infinology. They where terrible! They goofed and charged my credit card an extra $35 when they said I wouldn't be charged until the billing dept showed up days later. Each ticket I submitted took about 5 days for a human response.
Before I signed up I tried the control panel demo for the account level I wanted. It had all the features I wanted enabled, and I could tinker with them. I also checked the list of features available with the account. They where all listed (multiple FTP accounts, mySQL, etc.). Of course, once I paid for the account I found that many of the features I wanted had actication fees, and some (like the FTP accounts) had a large monthly fee as well.
I couldn't cancel the account on the phone, but the guy said that I'd get all my money back if I filled out a cancellation form online.
That form said it'd be done in less than 24 hours. During that time I did get a refund for the money they overcharged me, but they never cancelled the account or returned my money.
About 30 hours later I filled out the form again.
48 hours later they still hadn't refunded my money so I filed a grievance with my credit card company, who gave me my $300 back (it was a 3 year hosting plan).
A short time later I get a couple messages on my answering machine to call an 800 number, and give them my reference number. They didn't say who they where or why they called, so I deleted the messages.
Then one called while I was home. This time it was a young man, and he told me that my Infinology account was forwarded to the collection company he worked for.
I explained the situation and told him that I had everything documented and that I'd gladly email it to him. He must have been new, because he had to go as what his company email address was. He also gave me his phone number and extension.
I emailed him copies of everything that night, and had them all bounced back to me because the email address was invalid. I called the number and put in his extension and the voice mail had a different name.
So I looked up his company online, saw that the contact number he gave me was from the New Orleans branch, and found the email address for the head of the New Orlean's branch.
I told him that I talked to X, that he'd given me an invalid email address, that the voicemail had the wrong name, and explained my Infinology situation.
I called the number and extension and, since my rep was in he answered. He said my account was squared away, but things worked slow with his company so I should expect more phone calls from bill collectors over the next couple weeks.
He was right. They'd call up, go through their routine, and then hang up on me when they looked down on their screen and saw that the account was closed.
One woman left a really funny message on my answering machine because she didn't know whether or not to believe that the account was closed. She's start, stop, tell me to wait (on an answering machine!), continue, pause, continue, etc. The call ended with a "Oh, nevermind" as if *I* had been harassing her.
I don't think I heard a single please of thank you from the collection agency. If I had to deal with deadbeats all day, I think I'd drop the pleasantries as well.
Argh!
When I ran out of bandwidth they really helped me out, and even spotted me an extra 16GB of transfer. I screwed up my forums once and they where really great about helping me fix it.
The last company I had was Infinology. They where terrible! They goofed and charged my credit card an extra $35 when they said I wouldn't be charged until the billing dept showed up days later. Each ticket I submitted took about 5 days for a human response.
Before I signed up I tried the control panel demo for the account level I wanted. It had all the features I wanted enabled, and I could tinker with them. I also checked the list of features available with the account. They where all listed (multiple FTP accounts, mySQL, etc.). Of course, once I paid for the account I found that many of the features I wanted had actication fees, and some (like the FTP accounts) had a large monthly fee as well.
I couldn't cancel the account on the phone, but the guy said that I'd get all my money back if I filled out a cancellation form online.
That form said it'd be done in less than 24 hours. During that time I did get a refund for the money they overcharged me, but they never cancelled the account or returned my money.
About 30 hours later I filled out the form again.
48 hours later they still hadn't refunded my money so I filed a grievance with my credit card company, who gave me my $300 back (it was a 3 year hosting plan).
A short time later I get a couple messages on my answering machine to call an 800 number, and give them my reference number. They didn't say who they where or why they called, so I deleted the messages.
Then one called while I was home. This time it was a young man, and he told me that my Infinology account was forwarded to the collection company he worked for.
I explained the situation and told him that I had everything documented and that I'd gladly email it to him. He must have been new, because he had to go as what his company email address was. He also gave me his phone number and extension.
I emailed him copies of everything that night, and had them all bounced back to me because the email address was invalid. I called the number and put in his extension and the voice mail had a different name.
So I looked up his company online, saw that the contact number he gave me was from the New Orleans branch, and found the email address for the head of the New Orlean's branch.
I told him that I talked to X, that he'd given me an invalid email address, that the voicemail had the wrong name, and explained my Infinology situation.
I called the number and extension and, since my rep was in he answered. He said my account was squared away, but things worked slow with his company so I should expect more phone calls from bill collectors over the next couple weeks.
He was right. They'd call up, go through their routine, and then hang up on me when they looked down on their screen and saw that the account was closed.
One woman left a really funny message on my answering machine because she didn't know whether or not to believe that the account was closed. She's start, stop, tell me to wait (on an answering machine!), continue, pause, continue, etc. The call ended with a "Oh, nevermind" as if *I* had been harassing her.
I don't think I heard a single please of thank you from the collection agency. If I had to deal with deadbeats all day, I think I'd drop the pleasantries as well.
Argh!
Years ago I cancelled invite.net when they switched servers, and decided my NEW plan did not include sql. The entire website was being transfered to sql at the time, they just erased all my data, so I was PISSED. I cancelled my plan with 6 months left on it, and went to a new host.
Six months later, they bill my bank card another $100 for another year. It took me days and days to contact them, and they said they'd refund my money. Two weeks later, no money. I contact them, they claim to have refunded it, and even faxed me an invoice (or whatever) that showed them refunding my money. Problem was, my bank was saying "No they didn't." I put together a big packet showing them exactly where they were screwing up, mailed it certified, and never got a response. Two weeks later, I had the bank issue a chargeback.
Invite.net claimed they paid me back but now I owed them $100 for the chargeback, so they seized every other domain on which I was the technical contact... fortunately I had already removed domain management of dtman.com off their servers. Contacted the BBB, but that doesn't do anything. Contacted the Denver police (invite.net HQ was in denver), and they didn't have a clue what I was talking about.
The people who actually paid for and owned those domains never got them back.
FUCK invite.net.
It seems like I've told this story before.
Edited By GORDON on 1117649727
Six months later, they bill my bank card another $100 for another year. It took me days and days to contact them, and they said they'd refund my money. Two weeks later, no money. I contact them, they claim to have refunded it, and even faxed me an invoice (or whatever) that showed them refunding my money. Problem was, my bank was saying "No they didn't." I put together a big packet showing them exactly where they were screwing up, mailed it certified, and never got a response. Two weeks later, I had the bank issue a chargeback.
Invite.net claimed they paid me back but now I owed them $100 for the chargeback, so they seized every other domain on which I was the technical contact... fortunately I had already removed domain management of dtman.com off their servers. Contacted the BBB, but that doesn't do anything. Contacted the Denver police (invite.net HQ was in denver), and they didn't have a clue what I was talking about.
The people who actually paid for and owned those domains never got them back.
FUCK invite.net.
It seems like I've told this story before.
Edited By GORDON on 1117649727
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
I was on SNENI before. I liked them because, well, after my previous host (Endore) went MIA, they offered 6 months of free service. The service was supposed to end in August 15, 2004.
In August I emailed them, requesting a bill, and got some dumb response than had nothing to do with me paying them.
In early January they went down. I assumed they where down perminantly, so I signed up with Infinology (big mistake!).
SNENI went back up shortly after. In February I got a notice that that ex-Endore customers would need to resubscribe if they wanted to continue service.
Due to the fact that I almost got a year's free service, I have a soft spot in my heart for their service. Other than that big down time, they had pretty good service.
In August I emailed them, requesting a bill, and got some dumb response than had nothing to do with me paying them.
In early January they went down. I assumed they where down perminantly, so I signed up with Infinology (big mistake!).
SNENI went back up shortly after. In February I got a notice that that ex-Endore customers would need to resubscribe if they wanted to continue service.
Due to the fact that I almost got a year's free service, I have a soft spot in my heart for their service. Other than that big down time, they had pretty good service.