| Posted by ecomm-consultant, 08-23-2005, 11:38 AM | |
My HostM hosting account has now been down for three days!.
It's not their fault, of course, they tell me. After all, hardware problems do happen. I actually had a response to a trouble ticket telling me that clearly I didn't understand the situation, that they are not responsible for hardware problems, and that I should be happy that they have engineers working 24/7 to restore all accounts (this as after the site had been down two days). And because their engineers were doing such a good job, my site would be back up within 9 - 12 hours (that's about 24 hours ago). And after all, many hosting providers don't even bother restore accounts when hardware fails.
Who are these people!! Are they nuts? Is this a real hosting company or a joke?
P
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| Posted by ecomm-consultant, 08-27-2005, 07:20 PM | |
Quick follow up.
Here's how HostM deal with criticism from customers who have had Web sites go down for three days and moved their sites to keep them alive ... they shut down your account.
I switched to another hosting account after my site had been down two days or so, and the HostM accound didn't come back up until a day after that. I paid for a year's hosting, and got 3.5 mths. So not only is HostM not a real hosting company, they're thieves, too. They took my money, and now won't let me into my hosting account. Sure, I switched my account, but I never told them to shut my existing account down; I have been trying to contact someone at HostM to talk to me about the way they treated me. Instead of responding to my e-mails they just shut me down, to make sure I can't get into their customer forums, probably.
Doesn't make much difference, their customer forums are censored anyway. I can't believe that after days of service interruption *nobody* complained in the forums ... HostM must have been censoring the complaints.
These guys are amazing. I'm on the phone with my bank right now seeing about disputing the charge on my credit card, even though it is several months ago.
P
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| Posted by ecomm-consultant, 08-27-2005, 07:28 PM | |
Finally, for posterity, HostM's responses to my trouble tickets during this process. I especially love the comment that begins "I am not sure you completely understand the situation. Hardware failures are not caused by us..."
8-11-05
We've rebooted the server so your services should be accessible now. Catherine
You said: 8/20/05 8:57 PM
It's down again! This is the second time in little over a week. In fact this site has probably been down for a few hours; it bounced email sometime late this morning, and is still doing so, and the site itself is down.
HostM.com said: 8/21/05 4:29 AM
The machine is still being restored after the hardware error as stated in the notice posted in the Client Lounge when you login. Such restorations do take some time because there is a lot of data to be copied over. Once the restoration is complete, the notice will disappear from the Client Lounge. Jennifer T.
You said: 8/21/05 1:43 PM
This is crazy; hostm must be the most unreliable hosting company I've every worked with! My site has been down now for over 24 hours! And it was down 9 days previoulsy for a while, too. I've *never* had a Web site down for 24+ hours!
You said: 8/21/05 3:42 PM
When will the server be back up? I know you have a noticed on the front page of the Client Lounge, but this really doesn't provide any useful schedule ifnormation. Not only was the schedule information clearly wrong in teh first place, there's also no time/date stamp on the message, so it's impossible to know when 12 hours, for isntance, will be over.
You said: 8/21/05 3:48 PM
Also, what's the situation with mail? Did you reroute the mail servers so we didn't lose mail for two days?
HostM.com said: 8/21/05 6:45 PM
The notice is periodically updated to show the latest time estimates. Any incoming email during the hardware issue will be automatically bounced back to sender so that they are aware you have not received the message. Some mail servers also automatically retry messages until they get through. Jennifer T.
You said: 8/22/05 10:35 AM
You are kidding! I've been down two days now, and you can't even tell me when I'll be back up! And you're bouncing my mail! This is my business you're screwing with! Why on earth didn't you at least point the mail to another server temporarily?!!!!! So, when is this going to be up and running. And please, don't point me to the notice...it doesn't say when!!!!
HostM.com said: 8/22/05 11:47 AM
I am not sure you completely understand the situation. Hardware failures are not caused by us; hardware can fail at any time. We do not cause the server to be down, nor do we go around affecting our clients' business. What we do when hardware fails is we take immediate action 24/7 including weekends to commence restoring all affected accounts onto new hardware. It is the restoration process that takes a lot of time, depending on the type of restoration used. In this case we are restoring from a secure off-site location, due to the local backups also being rendered unusable due to the hardware failure. The automatic bouncing of email is due to the hardware failure and also not caused by us. We cannot go around re-pointing mail to different servers because it would interfere with the restoration process, making it even longer. According to the current restoration progress, your hosting account should be back online within the next 9-12 hours, due to our engineers actually doing something about this. This is unlike many hosting providers who do not even respond to support tickets nor attempt to restore accounts at all when hardware failures happen. They either then completely disappear from the web or simply leave you hanging with no account or an empty one. You may have already come across many of these horror stories online. Geraldine K.
You said: 8/22/05 11:57 AM
You're kidding! Your business is to prepare for hardware failure. It doesn't take 2.5 days to restore a system if you're prepared. Clearly you weren't prepared for this type of problem. You're now telling me I may have to wait another half day! That's absurd. As for claiming "hey, we're better than some of those really bad companies," that's ridiculous too. Whey would you want to compare yourself with the scams, you should be comparing yourselves with the professional systems .... that don't have this sort of problem. Of course servers can go down, but it doesn't take days to fix the problem if you're prepared!!!!! You guys screwed up, and screwed up bad. A 2.5 - 3 day down time is something I've *never* experienced, and I've had Web sites since 1994.
You said: 8/22/05 4:39 PM
So when is my site coming back up!!!!? By the way, you claimed when you sold me this account that you had RAID. If so, how could my site possibly be down for 2 and a half days?
You said: 8/22/05 6:34 PM
24 hours ago I asked if somone could tell me when my site and email would be back up. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. Nobody can tell me; this it totally ridiculouse; this is my business you're screwing with. I think I at least deserve an honest response ... can you please tell me: a: Do you know (really) when my site will be up. b: if so, when?
HostM.com said: 8/22/05 6:36 PM
We are still in the process of restoring the data. Your site should be coming up within the next 3 - 4 hours (the next batch). Catherine
You said: 8/23/05 11:21 AM
Three days I've been down now!!!!! Are you guys going out of business? Will my site *ever* be up?
HostM.com said: 8/23/05 11:34 AM
Your hosting account has already been up and running for some time, as per the previous ticket response by Catherine. When I type your domain into the web browser, your web site loads up just fine. Geraldine K.
You said: 8/26/05 9:46 AM
A: When I wrote that msg, my site was still down. The previous ticket did not tell me the site was up, it told me that it *would be* up within 3 - 4 hours -- by early morning on the 23rd. In fact my site was not up by then, and was not up by 11:21AM then next morning.
B: My site loaded "just fine" when you tried it, because it wasn't running on your server, it's running a real hosting company's server. If I had waited for your guys to get my site up, I would have had to wait a total of over 3 days, which is totally unnacceptable. I can't believe HostM's attitude to this whole thing, it's incredibly cavalier. You kill my site for three days, and you don't even apologize, not a word of apology, just ridiculous excuses!!!!
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| Posted by Henk1988, 08-29-2005, 12:56 PM | |
Dam this really sucks. I am glad I dont have any hosting with them.
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| Posted by ecomm-consultant, 08-29-2005, 01:56 PM | |
It's truly bizarre - I wish I knew how to contact the CEO, but the information is not available. It's hard to pick a good hosting company, but damn, I didn't think anyone could be as bad as these jokers!!!
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| Posted by Stranger, 09-26-2005, 05:59 AM | |
Regarding your issues with HostM, its truly pathetic how they treated you.
Its a pity when companies like that act that way.
Ive had those sorts of problems with a dedicated server company before, and it proves some are just theiving scoundrels.
Unfortunately Ive given out too many accounts via my hosting co.
But to show you not all companies are bad, Im willing to give you the balance divided by half, of what HostM owed you, completely free.
Thanks
Ak Sharma
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| Posted by blackbm, 09-28-2005, 12:58 PM | |
haha
poor hosting company.
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