Don’t Buy From iPage.Com Until You Read My Review — Save Time And Money!!
Jun 06
Its simply not enough to go after phoney baloney webhosting review sites, you have to go after the companies that put money in their coffers. The money is coming from webhosting companies. Because of this practice we are swamped with tons of crap while trying to search for real info on a webhosting. There are 25 webhosts on webhostingstuff.com’s top list Since iPage is at the top of webhostingstuff.com they are the first on my list. Going by rating then number of reviews they would be number 9, but by webhostingstuff.com’s own ranking on the page for iPage.com its 60. I will start with them. In July I will go after another hosting review site and their customers.
There is a lot of info to sort out on iPage. The puzzling thing is they were supposed to be hosting since 1998, but according to this link (http://www.findmyhosts.com/hostmonster-vs-iPage-vs-fatcow/) they just relaunched after years of inactivity back in October 2009. iPage.com claims to have more then 1,000,000 websites. It does not say domains or customers. Are they counting addon domains like what geocities did? Keep in mind customer can have one plus domains, and I have seen a lot of customers with a thousands of domains for the sheer purpose of increasing their site rankings. A gimmick that hosting companies and hosting review sites also employee.
Looking at their dns records I see this:
ipowerweb.net
Another webhosting company on theplanet.com servers.
Strangely while trying to see where webhostingstuff.com ranks ipowerweb, I get the following message:
We apologize for any inconvenience you are currently facing.
To allow us to diagnose the error(s) you’re facing, please fill your email address below
and press the “Diagnose My Connection” button.
Our Webmaster Team are then able to diagnose error(s) you’re facing and contact you when
they are fixed.
Once again, thank you for your patience! 
Your Email Address:
I am not going to give them my email address. But the problem seemed to happen after I went to the advertise with us link. A friend on the same network has confirmed that they do not have the same problem and can clearly see the top 10 on webhostingstuff.com’s main page. But I tend to wonder the relationship between iPage and ipowweb. The lay out of both sites has a similar feel. Perhaps the collective of companies have over 1,000,000 websites on their “Platform”.
One of the ways iPage is promoting their company is an insane affiliate program with commission junction that I don’t quite understand. They offer $100 – $125 per annual account, and what appears $25 per blog. I had to look at it several times because it does not make a lot of sense, especially since they are talking about their $3.50 a month plans (which is their only plan). A full year is $42.00. However this only counts if the person ordering does not decided to cancel their order and get suckered into the last chance offer when trying to get away from the shopping cart. In which case there is no commission made by the referrer. Granted there is nothing in regards to renewal fees so I suppose they can start making a profit off refereed customers after a year or 2, if that customer buys into the extras. But that’s a lot of income being taken away from the service of the customer. It is however very desirable to those that want the income to push this product when they can get a very high pay out for a single sale. Making it to where anyone that wants to push hosting is not going to go for an affiliate program that while rewarding the referral, is not giving away the farm to get the new customer. Keep in mind not every customer is going to come through the commission junction program, and this is not going to be iPage’s only source of advertising. After all they are also paying the cost to remain on number 1 host out of 25 with webhostingstuff.com. Not to mention Commission Junction is not exactly bringing affiliates for iPage for nothing. Clearly you have a choice to select between a company that pays more for making sure you get the best service, or more to those that would bring customers in like cattle.
Webhostingstuff.com is not the only company parading this company as being a highly regarded website. Going to Google I get a load of various affiliates, and a list to add of people that are in the business of webhosting reviews. Though it appears they are like webhostingstuff.com is paying the most for “advertising”. I found it on a few affiliates that try to appear as unbiased reviews. But none of these sites are hosted on iPage.com’s network. http://www.webhostingbreak.com/ is one of the sites that has a glowing endorsement. Better yet Ian (owner of webhostingbreak.com), allows you to do blog posts about hosting companies. Using other people to help advance his own website to promote hosting companies on his lists, all of which have affiliate programs.
After a long review of search engine results its hard not to find negative feedback about the support, uptime, and at times support responses that don’t understand the most basic of questions. Worst yet a repeat pattern where people are told there was no outages when asked for the cause of the outages. I find it remarkable based on the negative feed back that I have found that iPage.com has no negative feed back on webhostingstuff.com. The only glowing endorsements I can find are those that are clearly affiliates that have a coupon code so you can get service for $3.50.
The terms of service, or the many pages of terms of service. Are some what long and cumbersome for a product that is only $3.50 a month. Frankly I have had credit card agreements, cell phone contracts, and loan agreements with less reading involved. Considering the amount of time I have spent on researching this company already, I am not willing to invest anymore time into digging in to their terms of service. So at best I am going to tell you what I have found while glancing and looking for certain parts of the terms of service. Namely the domain name, since they offer a free one.
I am no big fan of hosting companies that want you to buy or transfer your domain to them. I don’t see a third option with iPage to simply change your dns to their servers from the domain register you have your domain with. You have to read the terms of service to see what they might mean by transfer which appears to mean changing your dns. Nothing clear in regards to that. The free domain is somewhat fuzzy on its own. I don’t have a problem so much with the domain being free for the life of the account, its an incentive. Not exactly one I would have preferred to use. But its the fact that they do not disclose how much the domain will cost if you decided to leave. I had to call to find out, and its $15.00 (however the site lists it as a $9.95 value). I stated I could get it cheaper else where, so I was not interested in buying a domain through them. I also asked about just changing my dns, and not transfering the domain. The operator on the other end was unclear on the details. But they do try to transfer you from your existing domain register, unless you contact them prior to ordering. These days you can get a domain for less then $10 from many fine registration companies. After all who wants to pay extra to a hosting company they may not like.
Then their User Agreement and their Domain Registration Agreement do not agree with one another.
User Agreement 2.b.i: If your plan includes a free domain name and You cancel within the first 30 days, a fee for the domain will be deducted from your refund. If you do not wish to keep the domain name, iPage will take possession of the domain and the fee will not be charged.
Domain Registration Agreement 4: Once a domain name has been registered or renewed through iPage, no refunds will be given for the domain registration or renewal fee.
On one hand they can charge you $15.00 non-refundable on the other they refund all your money.
Also in User Agreement 2.b.i: at anytime by either party by giving the other party thirty (30) days prior written notice, provided that we may charge You a minimum $35.00 charge as an early cancellation fee.
Meaning after you cancel after 30 days and you paid for a year ($42.00) you could get $7 or less.
Going to the order form they automatically selects 2 year pricing. I am not sure about their experience, but generally I have had forms on monthly pricing, often customers would not even bother reading the terms of service or for that matter see what they were paying for. But the worst part I think is that they preselected some add-ons, Prevent Identity Theft & Secure Your Data ($12.95 a year) and Automate Your Site Backup ($12.95 a year). That’s an extra $51.80, if the person who ordered did not bother to check the bi-annual billing, versus $25.90 for the year).
Finale here is my chat session with one of their (shared)staff, you will get what I mean after you read the transcript. Needless to say I found out more then I though I would ever get out of a chat session. BTW I am Benjamin.
Thank you for contacting support. Please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you. Please hold for the next available operator to respond.
All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
You are now chatting with ‘Bryan Smith’
Bryan Smith: Hi Benjamin My name is Bryan Smith, how are you today?
Benjamin: I was wondering if you could give me details on some of the freebies offered on your main page that are not listed on the hosting features site. in regards to carbonite and shopsite. There are no details that I can see as to what I get with these two services if I sign on with you.
Bryan Smith: I apologize for the wait time.
Bryan Smith: Could you please provide me with the URL from where you have entered this Chat interface?
Benjamin: your main page
Bryan Smith: May I have the URL of our website through which you have logged into this chat? I need the URL of our website where you have clicked the Chat icon.
Benjamin: you should know that, there is only one main page
Bryan Smith: I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. But we need your co-operation as we are in the process of enhancing the Chat icons on our website and during this period we want to identify the exact page from where you have contacted us. This will help us to determine the list of pages from where we usually get the chats and organize the Chat icons in a better way.
Benjamin: but you only have one main page, either you know it, or you are supporting more then one company.
Benjamin: meaning outsourced support
Benjamin: iPage.com, which you should have been able to tell me
Bryan Smith: Okay.
Bryan Smith: Thank you for your interest in iPage.
Bryan Smith: Yes, we are supporting couple of hosting company.
Bryan Smith: FatCow is the sister company of iPage.
Bryan Smith: I will provide you the information.
Bryan Smith: May I place you on hold for 4 or 5 minutes, while I check this for you?
Benjamin: ok
Bryan Smith: Thank you for holding.
Bryan Smith: In order to know more about the ShopSite, please go through this link:
Bryan Smith:http://www.iPage.com/product/shopsitemanager.bml
Bryan Smith: In order to know more about the Carbonite, please go through this link:
Bryan Smith: http://Carbonite
Bryan Smith: The correct link is:
Bryan Smith:http://www.iPage.com/product/carbonite.bml
Benjamin: if I decided to not stay with your company how much does it cost to keep the domain name?
Bryan Smith: Only $10.95 per year.
Benjamin: but your site says a 9.95 value
Benjamin: and someone on the phone told me 15.00
Bryan Smith: You can view the domain price list at:
Bryan Smith:http://www.iPage.com/product/domainRegistration.bml
Benjamin: how many other companies are you supporting? To be honest I was looking for a company with its own support.
Bryan Smith: Only two hosting company.
Bryan Smith: iPage and FatCow.
Benjamin: fatcow does not appear to offer carbonite
Bryan Smith: FatCow offers the Carbonite.
Benjamin: where?
Bryan Smith: Please go through this link:
Bryan Smith:http://www.fatcow.com/product/carbonite.bml
Benjamin: ok I will review
Benjamin: may, ask where you are located?
Bryan Smith: Our headquarters are in Burlington, MA, but I’m located in one of the support centers in Mangalore, India.
Benjamin: you have a uncommon name for some one in India
Benjamin: anyway have a nice day
Bryan Smith: Its not our real name.
Bryan Smith: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Benjamin: why would you not use your real name?
Bryan Smith: Due to a security reasons we do not use it.
I ended the chat session after this, perhaps if I dug more I could have found out that this was not even a human being, after all Brian said “its was not our name”, I felt if I dived in any closer and I would find myself in the twilight zone. I have no problem with names that are not of European descent, but it seems a bit odd to use a fake name for the sake of security of someone in India. After all he could just go by his first name (is the person on the other side even male?). Its not like my name is all that rare, and I am sure the person on the other end has a common (maybe Hindi) name. But perhaps I could have found out more information from the person on the other end that eagerly volunteered information. I tend to doubt that fatcow is the only site behind iPage. I tend to wonder if iPage was somehow absorbed into the collective known as fatcow. Its clearly cheaper to get hosting from iPage.com then fatcow.com. Which makes me wonder since iPage.com is cheaper, if what ever company that own fatcow is now seeing a slide in sales since it seems like unlimited hosting gets cheaper and cheaper as the months go gy.
My suggestion, avoid this company as well as any company that tells you that they offer you unlimited hosting for dirt cheap. Offers you tons of freebies like carbotnite, but that’s just a trial account, not the full version. They also offer google adwords, Facebook advertising credit, Yahoo,…… all of which I get in the mail for free straight from those companies. This is nothing more then a gimmick to get you into buying service from those advertising outlets.
Then there is WordPress and Joomla, also free. The most I have paid for WordPress is on themes and applications. A lot of stuff that most people would never need. I am not a Joomla User, though I can tell you it was a support headache. But both of which you can install for free, especially if your host has a program that sets up apps like the one I was using with cPanel.
At this point I have to stop digging, as the more I dig the more I find. I wanted to spend no more then a day looking into this. Yet I spent 5 days. I have more content then I care to post, as I could devote a whote site to just what I found on iPage.
I need to agree with you! i spoke with their support and a very similar conversation. And supposedly they dont support cron jobs [scheduled tasks] and that was verified by a “specialist” supervisor. As far as i know vDesk[their control panel] comes with the option by default, unless they mean stripping options when they say customization.
As per the security issue revealing the name i guess it is to prevent racist attacks. Atleast an attempt to maybe?
Hello Shankar,
I find it weird they don’t support cron jobs, not being a technical person myself. Its what I paid techs to take care of, and I could not imagine not supporting crons in that line of business.
After my chat with Fatcow, I think I had got lucky and just got a chat operator that perhaps didn’t care what he / she said. I could not get the Fatcow chat operator to admit where they were from, nor could I call “her”.
Regards,
Benjamin
Benjamin, Thanks for taking the time to write this up… I was doing some open-source research on web hosting companies and your experiences helped me to decide against iPage… I still don’t know which company to host with (hell, maybe GoDaddy since all my domains names are there), so I’m still looking…
Appreciate you taking time to expose companies that practice bad sales tactics like this…
Very Best,
Patrick
I canceled my ipage account yesterday, i wish i read this article earlier, i kept getting 500 internal server error on my joomla site, when i submitted a ticket and contacted chat support they claimed that they saw no problem from their end, when i told them that more ppl are experiencing the same problem they changed their story and said it`s a cgi issue.
It was like that for 8-9 days when i finally decided to terminate my account,they promised to give me a refund but they will keep my domain name and deduct 15 dollars, i would of canceled much earlier but i thought they were a respectable company, it`s difficult to find many negative remarks about them, now i know of course that most of the positive remarks come from ipage in one way or another.
Oh i forgot to ask you this, since you seem to be very knowledgeable about various hosting providers. Which one do you use? I would really like to know, cause i have used many Byethost, One, Ipage none of those worked for me, i gather after reading your article that cheap ones that offer unlimited this and that should be avoided.
If you can`t answer maybe because it could potentially ruin your objectivity i will understand.
Hello Patrick,
Godaddy is ok, though the response time on their shared service leads much to be desired as well as their response time on support. But for small or slow running projects they work out until you need to move on to something bigger for which I would suggest their vps accounts if your willing to call for faster support. Personally I don’t like calling any company for support. Not to mention they do not have a high affiliate payout, though they do have expensive super bowl ads.
Regards,
Benjamin
Hello Rijad,
At this time I can’t recommend any host I just started 2 months ago still tweaking my setup and not to mention work on new source of income. I can’t say that I would not be willing to recommend a host at a later date. But its not going to be a host that pays for a fake review or fake ranking like those at webhostingstuff.com or hostaz.com.
Basically I can tell you who to avoid which would be any company that has unlimited space and a high affiliate payout. I also recommend contacting a host before signing up. Response time and how they respond says a lot about a company. I also avoid any company that offers free domains, as a general rule my domain is kept with a separate company then the place I host. In general I find that most “free domain with hosting” companies charge more then regular domain registers if you want to take the free domain to another company.
Regards,
Benjamin
I said use not recommend, but i can certainly understand your position.
Most ppl tend to think there is safety in numbers, when a company claims that they host over a million web pages that has a powerful psychological effect on people, than you immediately assume that they are a stable and respectable hosting provider, when you expose well established top hosting providers on various fake lists who host hundreds of thousands (un)happy customers, how can we than trust less known companies even if they meet all your expectations? I hope you can see the predicament for us mere mortals.
Based on your advice i came across rochehost.com, they host joomla so they must be good, right?
Again i will understand if you can`t reply, in any case thank you for opening my eyes.
Hello Rijad,
And by use, I mean the hosts I am using are not ones I would recommend. There are a lot of companies out there and I have used some that are out of business or merged with other companies such as dialtone, ev1, and fastservers. One reason I do not recommend some of the ones I use is that their attitudes are different for ones that pay a few bucks to those that pay tens of thousands a month.
Regards,
Benjamin
Hi there,
You’re right, iPage cannot be trusted, they’re acquired by EIG company..
If you know about EIG, you should know the company is very sucks.
Good luck!
Billy
Hello Billy,
I would love to know why Findmyhosts.com has an issue with eig. I think it has to do with affiliate commissions.
Regards,
Benjamin
I’m in chat with these people right now and OMG. Read this.
Chat InformationThank you for contacting support. Please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you. Please hold for the next available operator to respond.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with ‘Nicholas Perez’
Nicholas Perez: Hi James. My name is Nicholas Perez, how are you today?
James Pyle: I’m doing pretty good thank you. Aside from hosting issues
Nicholas Perez: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
James Pyle: Here is the problem I am having, the webhost is very slow. I have been using webhosting for 25 years and I know what speeds should be like and what effects them. I usually use hostgator or godaddy which NEVER give me any issues or downtime..but in less than a weeks time with ipage I can already tell it is not working right. I have put in a support ticket but they tell me it works fine. The problem is on a standard WordPress theme it takes about 15-20 seconds to load..this doesn’t sound to bad..but it should only take 1-2 seconds. Also every hour or so the host just stops working for awhile. Also, the FTP access is slow..even changing a directory takes 2 seconds..when it should be instant. So I want to know if I cancel and get my money back will I still have access to my domain so I can get a different host.
James Pyle: I really like ipage I think they have great features and I liked how someone called us the first day to see if we need help..but the most important thing on a webhost is speed..and you guys have some problems there. I did some research online and found the same issue all over the web from others with ipage…
Nicholas Perez: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Nicholas Perez: You have contacted sales support.
Nicholas Perez: You need to contact tech support regarding your issue.
James Pyle: Ive already contacted tech support
James Pyle: I dont want any more tech support I want to cancel and get my money back and need to know if I can still access my domian afterward…?
James Pyle: If you can’t help me can you transfer me to someone who can
Nicholas Perez: We are sorry to hear that you wish to cancel your account ‘getcapturedbymishaco’ with us. Is there a specific reason why you are canceling your account? Perhaps, if we knew why you are canceling, we could work something out so that iPage could better suit your needs.
Nicholas Perez: Did you receive my last message?
James Pyle: Are you serious? I just told you why
James Pyle: The speeds are terrible
James Pyle: Im sorry if I sound rude I am really frustrated right now
Nicholas Perez: I understand your concern, James. However, if you provide the URL in which you are experiencing the issue, we can further investigate the issue.
James Pyle: I have already done that
James Pyle: They told me it works normally
James Pyle: Which it doesn’t.
James Pyle: I have an open support ticket already..
James Pyle: They said “When I tried to view the site it works fine”
James Pyle: Which isn’t very helpful
Nicholas Perez: It seems that it is the issue with your local ISP. I suggest that you provide the tracert result of your domain ‘getcapturedbymisha.com’, so that we can check it with one of our engineers.
James Pyle: Again not trying to be rude…I found ipage by google and some websites who listed it as a top site but I have since found out that the company outsources its support (you guys) and that the company has a sister site..this is not the kind of place I was looking for. I have NEVER had a speed issue with a webhost before..even free hosts worked fast as intended such as geocities…it’s clearly either bandwidth being limited or poor hardware… Im not too happy that I have to pay $15 for a domain either when I cancel when a domain is at most $10. This company is completely shady.
James Pyle: No
James Pyle: It doesnt work from my work computer
James Pyle: my parents house
James Pyle: home
James Pyle: or anywhere..also I had my friends online in other states check and they said its slow also
James Pyle: It also goes down a lot
James Pyle: I dont want to be jacked with right now
James Pyle: I know you work for another company and are paid to support ipage but Im telling you this company is horrible and it’s a real shame ..
James Pyle: So I would like to know how I can cancel and get my domain moved.
Nicholas Perez: We would love to have the chance to prove to you that we can provide you with the stable hosting and support you are looking for. We’d like to offer you 1 free month of hosting with us. You could use this 1 free month to test out the services of your new hosting company. Then if you decide that you are unhappy with their services, you will be able to come back to us and have saved yourself the hassle of setting up a new account and the cost of the setup fee.
James Pyle: Why would I want a free host from a company that lies about what they are and who they are..and charges you $15 for a domain..AND has a service that doesn’t even work properly. I understand you are just doing your job. But I dare you to google ipage reviews and find the people who’ve posted the truth about ipage..the company is VERY SHADY and also very poor…and it’s making me very angry. We are a fairly poor family we don’t have money to be wasting..I was setting up a website for my wife to run a sidebusiness to try to get my kids school clothes and birthday presents
Nicholas Perez: I understand your concern, James.
James Pyle: We have 3 daughters..and Ive blown not only my time (which is precious as I work 3 jobs) but also now my money..
James Pyle: Again I know it’s not your fault and I might be sounding very rude.
Nicholas Perez: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
James Pyle: But I am just VERY frustrated
James Pyle: Especially when I learned EIG owns Ipage..so don’t get me started..
James Pyle: it’s all about money..not customers
Nicholas Perez: The website speed is depending on the the Internet connection speed, operating system, browser and the website contents.
James Pyle: SO save me some trouble have some dignity and get me cancelled and get my domain transferred
Nicholas Perez: I suggest that you downgrade your account to Basic Membership, which is a free membership. In case if you need our hosting services again, you just need to upgrade it to any higher package.
James Pyle: I have SUPER fast internet connection at all my locations it is NOT that
James Pyle: I have my EXACT webpage uplaoded on my other host that I have had for 15 years
James Pyle: and it works flawlessly
James Pyle: Stop giving me excuses!
James Pyle: You do know I am saving this conversation and it is going on the web right?
James Pyle: A company who can’t back up their claims..and then instead of helping you cancel they try to sell you more things..
James Pyle: How does this look?
Nicholas Perez: Yes, I know, James.
I asked him the same question 3 times..how long will it take to get my refund. He pasted the same answer 3 times. The generic textbook answer..
Which said after they cancel a billing specialist will refund it..but didn’t say how long…it’s pissing me off!
So let me get this straight..I can use their enom.com to change my DNS servers but once it expires..they own it..and the only way I can get it back is to purchase their services again??!?
Hello James,
Its not hard to tell that their support is outsourced. Sometimes you get lucky and a you get a chat operator thats willing to tell you almost anything.
If your domain is important to you I would just deal with the retention fee, but quickly make sure to change your domain to another register. this is one of the reason I do not recommend going with free domain with hosting For that matter having your domain with the same company as your hosting account. However being a budget might me scrapping the domain and going for another. My suggestion is to go with a domain provider that provides free hosting and them move your site once its ready to go active.
Regards,
Benjamin
Well after that huge ordeal..it looks like the account is in “cancellation” process. I found out my domain is stuck with them for now at least..for 60 days. But I was able to put my DNS servers in there and he said I would still be able to access it when my account was cancelled and after 60 days I can transfer it free of charge.
I’ve switched to godaddy and instantly my speeds are perfect. Kinda funny…well no, it’s not.
Anyways..thanks for this article..I wish I had seen it BEFORE.
Sorry for using your comment section as a huge rant zone…I was extremely pissed off
Funny thing, I got an email from them that appears to be an order..it acts just like an order saying thanks for your order but has a price of 0. Then links you to logging in..which it appears I can still log in but my control panel features are gone. But they can’t even get a proper cancellation email?
Hopefully I will actually see my refund.
Hello James,
This is defiantly a place to vent, and I am not exactly one that refrains from a rant. Feel free to update if you get your refund or if they string you out.
Best of Luck,
Benjamin
Update:
I got my cancellation email, which appeared to be the same as the order email (computer generated)
The only difference was it had 0′s in the cost. So I assume this is my cancellation..lol.
Then today..I got an email from “SiteLock” which I guess is like SSL…it’s saying my account was setup so I guess iPage sets that up automatically..but why would they on a closed account?
This company is complete crap…I still havn’t see a refund but they did say 7-10 so I will keep watching.
This company needs to be exposed, they shouldn’t even be allowed to function.
Thanks man you saved my day. I found it kind of funny that they have no negative fbacks when is a fact that you cannot please every one. I am having permission problems with godaddy and they are not help. they make me feel they have no clue sometimes. but i have been with them for like 8 years as my domain hosting company. however i started using their unlimited hosted server and speed is slow, uploads get reset and 500 server errors all over the place. I have been so pleased with them that i still feel that i may be the one causing the problem. but there is not solutions out there in google.com concerning this matter. any ways i do not want to deviate from this article’s purpose, i will keep looking for other host providers that do not have 1 zillion customers and are shady but service a small community and offer them great service and reliability. thank you man.
Wow. What an eye opener. I just chatted with them and was about to sign up. Glad I googled on ‘ipage cancel’ and found this. Thanks a lot Benjamin!
One thing I definitely don’t need right now is going through another round of headache with those scammers.
I am having similar issues. My website was slow, and I have another bloated vbulletin/joomla site on hostgator that loads 10x faster. I should have just upgraded my account using hostgator (which expires in jan), but I thought $3.50 a month for unlimited domains was too good a deal to pass up compared to hostgator’s $9.95 plan. So I bought 2 years at ipage, and was planning on transferring over my hostgator website when it expired in january.
But my ipage/joomla website was just way too slow. Each page refresh was like 5-10 seconds on a good day, which is such a long time when you are making tiny changes in articles and settings. There were times when it was 20 seconds for a page to load, and were talking a bare bones website with just a few articles and sections.
I contacted ipage by opening up a support ticket, and they immediately got back to me letting me know they were able to replicate the problem, and my ticket was forwarded to another dept. This person said they were not able to replicate the problem, and asked me to try clearing my cookies in my web browser. But then, like magic, the website loading time improved. I decided not to bite his head off for telling me there was no problem, because all I cared about was that the problem was fixed.
But 3 days later, and the website is slow again. If I open up my other joomla/hostgator website and upload the same template and articles, there is absolutely no problem with the pages loading, so its obvious that the problem is with ipage.
I opened up another support ticket asking to close my account. Hopefully this doesn’t become too much of a hassle.
And PS, I have opened up 2 support tickets with hostgator, and both times I have had an email response fixing the problem within 10 minutes. My first ticket was because of a problem installing joomla which they fixed for me without asking me to do anything. My most recent ticket was asking them to upgrade my account from a hatchling to a baby (which has unlimited domains) and even though its $9.95/mo compared to $3.95/mo, having a reliable webservice is worth the difference in price. Nobody who finds my site via a link or a google search is going to wait 20s for a page to load.
If you are looking for a reliable webhosting service, I do recommend hostgator. I should have never tried to leave them in the first place.
Hello Djanelle,
Exactly how long have you been with hostgator? Also what site(s) do you have hosted with them? Not to mention what exactly was it that made you consider iPage over hostgator? I like to consider myself some what a of a brand loyal person when I get service that I enjoy, and not that inclined to try out other companies. Granted there is not a hosting company at this time that I can say that I like that much at this point. Perhaps it was getting an unlimited hosting account for $3.50 instead of $4.95 a month?
The domain name askveronicajames.com appears to still be with iPage. Perhaps you got a free domain with them and are having problems moving it?
2 issues resolved quickly and a fast server can be nothing more then the luck of the draw. You might have gotten them during a slow support day, and you might be on a low load server. As hard as it may be for some to believe that can happen with the cheap unlimited accounts. Sometimes you get on a server with a bunch of people with sites that utilize very little of the resources. Even less the resources then what a hosting company may deem the profit margin. But thats no guarantee that its going to stay that way, it may take years before it does anything to effect a server. For that matter it may be just one person that pushes the server from high speed to sludge slow server. Then there might be something that can cause your support tickets to take days to get resolved. Perhaps you may have gotten a fresh new eager support agent, who may later become a old disgruntle under paid employee that could care less if your with the company after he has turned your support issue into a headache.
I see this happen a lot with cheap unlimited providers like hostgator. You have reviews like yours, and then you have people that complain about support time and server speed. Then there are those that write positive reviews only to a year or so later to write a negative review. Clearly cheaper does not always guarantee quality in the long run.
Regards,
Benjamin
Yes just to clarify the only reason I was tempted to leave hostgator was because of the price. I had to upgrade my account from a “hatchling” that was $6.95/mo to the “baby” plan that allows unlimited domains–so now I pay $9.95/mo now at hostgator instead of ipage’s $4.95/mo, which is a huge difference in price. My websites (especially litterboxsolutions.org) don’t generate money and are more of a hobby, so price for me is a huge motivating factor.
And I do believe their customer support is excellent. When I emailed hostgator 2 days ago asking them if I could upgrade my account even though it was prepaid until january, within 20 minutes I had an email back saying that a $12 invoice had been posted at my account. It was so easy I was kind of kicking myself for not just doing that in the first place.
I ended up abandoning my domain completely with ipage. When I tried to cancel I had every intention of transferring the askveronicajames domain over to hostgator but the customer service rep on ipage said I needed to keep a free account with them in order to manage the domain. I searched on their website and couldn’t find any information about what a free account was, so I just felt more comfortable choosing another name through another domain registry.
And I understand not all servers are created equal, but I will say that I do feel confident that if I were to experience the same slow server problem with them that the problem would be fixed right away. But who know, I guess only time will tell!!
Thanks for writing this article. I did find this whole process to be a good learning experience, and hopefully others can learn from my mistake.
I find it very strange that you cannot recommend a webhosting service – very strange indeed.
It totally detracts from every single bad thing you say about every single other webhosting service.
What are your recommendations? What the hell are they?
DRS,
What is strange is you have ignored the purpose of this site. This is not about telling you who the best hosts are or for that matter who is a bad host. Its about telling you which hosts use fake reviews to position themselves. Its about the sites that claim that the hosts they recommend are good hosts, even though the only reason they recommended said host is because they have a high payout. You did see that the name of this site is Hosting-reviews-exposed.com right?
You also saw that this was ‘x’ host of ‘month’ and ‘year’ of webhostingstuff,com, a pay per ranking site?
Also I have stated who I use, at this time there is no host that are up to my standards that I have used. Currently Media Temple, Rackspace, godaddy (only to start up a site), and theplanet are adequate solutions. I suspect you have only read this page.
Regards,
Benjamin
Just my 2 cents. I haven’t had the greatest speed or service with iPage, but for 42 bucks I didn’t expect much. For the last year it’s been, just okay. However, now it’s time to renew, and instead of 42 dollars like my initial contract, the renewal fee is 130. Just beware… don’t get suckered in to an average at best host thinking you’re going to get 3.50 per month for life.
Hi Brooks,
Did they charge you this before sending you the bill?
Regards,
Benjamin
Hi Benjamin
I found you because I phoned ipage today to renew my business with them. Wow that was painful. Same as Brooks, I had locked in for a year at $3.50 and today I asked them to confirm how much it would be for the year to be sure it was still $42. They said something like $107 I didn’t hear it quite my brain just said “double” its over double in price!!! wth! The agent I was speaking to had a hard time with me because I am relentless with my questions. Eventually she stated everything I was saying was an argument and I asked her if she needed to refer me to someone else, that I am allowed to not like the price and allowed to say I don’t like the fact it has magically doubled in price. She stated that when I sighed up, somewhere there it stated the price would change….lol I print everything and I do not see a single claim that the price was subject to change or was going to be this or that, or double!
At any rate, I decided she was a pain and did not want to argue with her and even though she said she could give me 3 years @ $42/year I was done talking to her. I hung up and called back and reiterated my complaint to another agent who apologize right away, I told her nothing to apologize about but reminded her I was allowed not to like this unannounced price change and that in fact I wanted to take the 3 years @ $42. As we went along, I mentioned the Domain Privacy cost of $8.99 per year. I said I would like to also renew that for 3 years, she said it could only be renewed for 1 year and that it had increased in price to $10.99/year. She went on to say that the cost of my domain would be $13….I said no, the last person I was arguing with told me it was part of my package and therefore free. She ask to put me on hold for a few minutes…she came back stating she put in a request to have that changed????? What needs to be changed….its free and on their site under Hosting Company Comparison it shows Free Domain….and with that being said she said only if I paid to have the Free Domain for life at an extra $40 or something ridiculous like that. I told her my husband compared service providers to ipage and the reason I signed up with ipage is because the domain name is free AND is for life….just like their own ipage review http://www.ipagereviews.org/ When I told her it says this she said I don’t know where you are reading that. I told her on the ipage review site, your site (ipage). She said she is sending in this problem for correction so I can have my account changed to have a free domain for life…..I said help me understand why something has to be changed when it shows only Free Domain: 1 – Free for Life. What other option she thinks I chose I don’t know. I can’t see anywhere on their site that says the price of $3.50/month is only for 12 months and I do not see “subject to change” or an option to purchase for 2 or 3 years as I have now been offered.
I hate, with a passion, price changes without notification and inconsistency when it comes to written information vs. verbal information vs. which representative you are speaking to. Either they are on the same page and know their business or they all need yearly, bi-annual training and a purge of old information vs. new.
I am now very hesitant about these guys. Especially after reading this thread from top to bottom. It hopefully was a coincidence but after my two calls this morning, no one in my office was getting mail and anything we sent out was bouncing back….AND the tech support person did not see “that” code before. I googled it and know about it now in a split second of reading. This tech person said she was going to check into it and someone would call me back…..sure ok whatever. Just after hanging up…I pressed send/receive and mail is coming and going fine….just coincidence right? I am not worth farting around with so I will go with coincidence. Thanks for sharing, thanks for helping me become a little bit more aware of shady practice. Merry Christmas ~ Season’s Greetings all
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/_\
Hello Lysdexia,
I have to say I am pretty stunned by this. Its one thing to change the price by a few bucks. Simply another charging something more then double without notification is a great way to go out of business. If my memory serves me right this is one of the later purchases of Endurance International Group. Would you by chance have a copy of this invoice that you would be willing to share?
Regards, and Merry Christmas to you
Benjamin
OK so I was getting close to starting my website with ipage and then I found this… and now what do I do? I thought I was coming close to a decision, and now I’m more confused than ever. For a total noob like myself, what should I do? Can someone just give me a top 3 list of hosting providers or something? Pretty Please??
Hello MG,
Sorry to say that the top 3 would probable be money motivated and not customer approval motivated. From what Ipage seems to be doing lately with what appears to be almost a 300% renewal cost they seem like a company to avoid.
Currently I am working on my top 10, well my top things to do when shopping for a host. At this time there is not one host that I would put my name behind at this time.
Regards,
Benjamin
Hey admin,
Any advice you may have would be very helpful. I first googled “best hosting websites” and got a bunch of lists, but now I’m skeptical of the integrity of those lists. I also asked some personal friends. One friend in a band mentioned dot5hosting and said he hasn’t had any problems with it. As a musician looking to make his first website, I’m just looking for something reliable and straightforward (and reasonably priced). I want to be able to post music, photos, blogs and hopefully videos. It may seem like myspace or youtube would be a good solution, but I already have all of that and would like to look more professional to the schools that might book me and also have more control as well as the ability to place ads on my site. (My Youtube videos get a lot of hits, but Youtube won’t let me into the partnership program.) As a noob to all of this, I’m open to suggestions.
It seemed like iPage would be a good starting point for me but after reading these comments, it sounds like a terrible move. So if iPage isn’t the way to go, I hope to find some better suggestions. Looking forward to your list.
Hello MG,
Here is a very rough draft (and by that I mean its a very basic list) of what I am setting up. Currently I am trying to work in my past post as examples to my ten points.
1.Read the terms of service
Yes I know its long and its boring. Cheap hosting companies are hoping you do not read the clause that states that if you do “x” they will shut your account down and you will not receive a refund.
2.Don’t sign up for service with any company that offers anything less then a 30 day guarantee,
One company comes to mind when I state no less then 30 days, that is 2gbhosting.com, they only have 7 days. Another company I forget the name but will only give you 30 days if you sign up for a year or more of hosting. I recommend avoiding a company that gives you less then 30 regardless of how long you sign up for. But its my opinion that you need 30 days minimum to get a feel for a hosting company.
3.Avoid unlimited Plans.
These days I know they are every where. But the problem is they are not unlimited.. If they try to tell you that unlimited hosting is not overselling they are either idiots or bald face liars. In most cases the terms of service will tell you that the so called unlimited plans are not unlimited. In rarer cases they will tell you what the limits are that will get your account shut down. None of them will tell you exactly how much space you get to have before they shut your account down.
4.Don’t sign up for 1 or 5 years for the first time, sign up for a month and if your happy sign up for longer terms for maximum savings. This is why I say to read the terms of service, many companies have it in there terms of service that they do not offer any refunds after 30 days. So you may be at worst stuck with a company.
5.Avoid “free” domains. Chances are if you do not like the host, keeping the domain is going to cost you more then getting it from a third party. Not to mention the issues you may have in getting the domain transferred to a different register.
6.Its ok to start out with the cheapest plan, especially if you are new to hosting. I can’t tell you how many hosting clients I have had in the past that have wiped out their savings because they thought they should go with the biggest and best package available. It might have worked but I doubt most of them had a business plan to pay for the accounts and make them profitable. Its better to start out small and work your way up.
7.Contact the hosts billing, sales, support by chat, phone, email, and whatever else.
There is no better way to get a feel for a company then by engaging the people that involved in the daily activities of the site.
8.Make sure the design is up to date, chances are if they are using a older design they are not with the current technologies. One site I found was so far out of date that they were listing a Windows nt platform that was out of date back in the early part of this decade.
9.Check their FaceBook, Twitter, Blog, and Forum. Look to see if there is a frequent updates. If there is a lack updates over a year or more they may not be as
10.How old do they say they are? Are they claiming they are 10 years old? Look up their domain whois (http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx ). Keep in mind that the domain this company may use may be whats called a aged domain. This is a domain that was purchased in the past but never put to active use until recently.. One way of looking to see if its a aged domain is the way back machine (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php ) Don’t rely on the Better Business Bureau, they ask companies when they started business. The most accurate date you can get from the BBB is when have been accredited.
On a side note a new company is not a bad thing, we all have to start some where. This is why I recommend that on the initial sign up that you do no more then 30 days the first time around, and sign up for more time later on. Also a new company may be more eager to work to keep your business, where as a large establishment may consider you more of a number..
Regards,
Benjamin
Hey Benjamin,
Thank you so much for the list. I’ll be referring to it for a while. A friend of mine told me about freehostia.com and I’m currently researching that and a couple of other options. But your list will surely help me in weighing the pros and cons of those options. Happy New Year.
Hello MG,
Hopefully sometime in the future I can offer a list of trusted names. Let me know how your search goes.
Regards,
Benjamin
i was scammed by IPage.com .$53
Hello Rick,
Could you explain what it was that this Endurance International Group company did to you?
Regards,
Benjamin
Aghhh! I didn’t see this page before signing up in iPage. Some minutes ago i saw a 107.40 bill in my billing center. I am upset. Its a scam.
They don’t inform about that change in the price. Everywhere they say that the price is 4,50 per month. And now is US$8,95.
Hello,
I am not sure this happened when you signed up. Then again I have only been running this blog for 9 months now. But when reviewing Ipage and many of the other Endurance International Group hosts I have not seen a pattern of raising the cost to what is almost a 300% increase. I am guessing this is something they implemented in the past few months.
I think its a bad policy especially without to notification
Regards,
Benjamin.
Sorry. Probably i wasn’t clear. I signed up a year ago. My first bill was $42.00. But now i have a pending bill of 107.40! They double the price in just one year.
Hello José,
Actually I am sorry I hastily typed that as I was tired. I mean I am not sure a year ago that ipage.com was charging $8.95 on renewals. This appears to be new.
Regards,
Benjamin
iPage is evil. I decided to cancel my account after a week because I discovered weebly. They said on their ads/site that they will give a full refund if you decide to cancel within the 30-day trial period.
Webhosting with them is $42. They also provide domain privacy which is $8.99. Also, they provide you with SiteLock for $12.95. So you end up paying about $63.94. When I asked how much they were refunding me through their live chat service, the agent said the full amount minus $15 for domain registration which irritated me at first but because I was willing to part ways with that ugly domain name I said sure, I’m willing to give up $15 if that will shut the agent up (he was trying to up-sell me with iPage products that clearly I don’t want). Anyway, I was made to think that my account will be cancelled by the 28th of the month (1 day from the time we chatted) and that I will be getting a full refund 63.94-15= $48.94. Soon after, I checked my account and found out that it was still active on the 31st of the month. I chatted with another live agent and he said that they didn’t delete it plus I will still be paying them $12 for domain parking which I clearly stated I didn’t want. Also, I found out that they will only be refunding $27 to me because they don’t refund add-on services even though they were provided by iPage. So basically, they ran away with my $21.94. If I bought a bag of cotton balls from my neighbourhood grocery store and wanted to return it just ‘cos I didn’t need it, the store will refund me everything to the last penny and snot, iPage will not give a rat’s behind. Plus their agents are vague and will try to up-sell crappy service to an already upset customer. Basically what I wanted to say is AVOID iPAGE at all costs!! They will overcharge you with service that you don’t need and not give you a full refund during the 30-day trial service. AVOID iPAGE!
Hi Benjamin,
Some friends of mine has recommended ipage to me. Could you please suggest a reliable host.
Please treat urgent.
Thank you,
Kazi
Hello Kazi,
I am sorry but there is no one I recommend at this time.
I can tell you who I use which is adequte.
Godaddy.com
Softlayer (I came in under theplanet)
Mediatemple
Rackspace.
Perhaps some day I will have a list of hosts I recommend.
Regards,
Benjamin
Thanks a lot for this, Benjamin!
I am with Streamline at the moment, but wanted to change, since they only supply 1,5Gb of storage space in my deal. Their user interface also sucks. As per usual they also just take their fees out of your credit card, without any warning. You agree in the contract to this, and to periodically log in to your account and check future outgoings yourself. This is a hastle, since all the features are not billed at the same time.
Support has been OK, via tickets posted on the net. I haven’t tried to cancel their service yet, though…
So, I have also just registered with iPage, and it is veeeeeeery slow. I have two ftp sessions going, one is normal, but the iPage one is unbearable!
I want to cancel iPage immediately, but would like to know if anybody here has actually got their money back into their accounts at all, please?
Cheers, Em
Hello Em,
From what I have heard people have got refunds, but its generally a smaller percentage then what they paid in. But the latest is that they are charging almost 250% more then what they charge the first year.
Regards,
Benjamin
Benjamin,
Have you had any experiance with hostmonster? They are listed on a site of rankings, I did a search and found they are not under the company that ipage and justhost are under, but appear to be independant.
Brands owned by EIG:
Startlogic
1) FatCow
2) Powweb
3) iPowerWeb
4) iPower
5) dot5hosting
6) Justhost
7) HostClear
9) Globat
10) Easycgi
11) Serverbeach
12) Virtualave
13) Choopa
14) Webhost4life
15) iPage
16) BizHostNet
17) SuperGreenHosting
Furthermore site where I got above list said a good trusted affiliate company is hostgator. I do not wish to put links on here but 17 under EIG is a long list of hosts.
I almost made the mistake of going with justhost then almost went with ipage. A friend said to go through their site so I get a good rate, and I looked at his site to find out it’s one of those affiliate sites that shows the “top” companies.
Looks like people do not like hostgator either and been getting billed after they cancel with them too. It seems to be a dog eat dog instead of being there for the people, it’s all about money.
Hello Fred,
If memory serves me correctly hostmonster is owned by the same people that own bluehost. Rumor is Bluehost and all the host under it were bought up by EIG last year. Also there are more then 30 brands as you can see from their BBB record. This was a recent purchase, and I have to wonder if we will be hearing about another massive outages if they migrate people like the did with host4life. There is actually alot more then 17 hosts you can find better list by searching my site for endurance international group. I even outline who has the most pay per affiliate and who is the cheapest unlimited plan.
I am sure there are honest hosts out there, its just there are alot of hosts to go through. Hopefully in the future I can make it easier to find them.
Regards,
Benjamin
I have experienced the same hassle with Fatcow.
They have worked well enough for me the last 2 years. I mostly just use my domains for vanity email addresses. Their servers go down once in awhile, get 500 errors, or don’t receive emails as quickly as more common servers like Gmail or Yahoo. In the end, my needs are modest so it has worked well enough for me and was cheap.
My story:
Signed on with Fatcow (apparently EIG owned?) 2 years ago:
2009 – $48/yr
2010 – $107/yr (complained, they offered me $42/annual rate with no mention of it ever increasing)
2011 – $107/yr (complained, they offered my $58/yr, billed me $107)
I am filing a chargeback with my credit card company as what they billed me was not my agreed upon rate. May file with the BBB but they’re honestly a joke. This isn’t serious enough to merit a complaint with my state attorney general’s office at least.
After doing some internet sleuthing *cough* Google search *cough* I find this EIG company has over 20 “hosting companies” that do the same thing, offer the same services, and have the same price points and introductory specials. They all jack the rate up to around $107/yr when you go to renew.
Customer service is outsourced and you get a different person every time, seems like the same person using a different Americanized name every time though.
I believe the saying goes: Caveat Emptor…
It’s cheap for a reason. It’s a baited hook for the oblivious buyer.
IPage.com is full of false advertising. You do not get a website with a store – you get one or the other. They will require an extra 14.95 per month if you want the store on you web page. LOUSY tech service. DO NOT GO WITH THEM!!!!!!!
I just checked my bank to find iPage had billed me £71 odd for hosting renewal. As it only cost £23 to sign up I was very annoyed and got onto their ‘live support’ and voiced my anger.
After an hour long conversation which seemed to be with a bot I got a refund minus $15 for the ‘FREE’ domain i got when I signed up.
I guess you could call this a victory. I’m glad iPage give you the option of a refund but they shouldn’t have led me to this in the first place with misleading and extortionate pricing.
Surely I could have just cancelled my plan and signed up again for £23! I guess the $15 (£9) fee is supposed to deter you from doing this.
Ipage are a waste of time and money. I’m in UK-. Website with Ipage was very slow to load. Sometimes waiting 40 seconds for page to load. Wanted to cancel under 30 day guarantee but would only get back 20% of what I paid. The rest is deducted for this and that.
Moved same website over to a friends server account and the pages load instantly – Just like google.
IPage- Stay away