Mochahost.com is the worst host? Check this review out before you buy!!!!

If you were to mention Mochahost.com to me, the phrase “like shooting fish in a barrel” comes to mind. They may be the worst one that I have found, defiantly worst out of the first 7of webhostingstuff.com top 25 hosts you should avoid. This indeed the first host I find valid complaints with just “mochahost sucks”

The first of which I looked at:

http://hostjury.com/reviews/mochahost+

Shamefully this is one of the Mochahost.com’ staffs responses to a customer:

Mr. Voorhees,

Before we respond to your actual review I have to say that we are shocked that a person who is associated with a Christian church is actually making false statements, lies, and means harm to others. We are sure that this behavior is not what they teach at your church “Colber Church of Christ” and are 100% positive that the Bible does not teach you how to harm other people and how to be a liar!

We should probably contact the teachers at your church and warn them about what person you are actually are?

Bottom-line: Don’t ever bring a person’s religion in to business, and for that matter use it to shame a customer. This is wrong on multiple levels.  Stick to business. But frankly I think there is little weight with this Mochahost Representative claims that Mr. Voorhees is a liar. As it seems he / she is the one who is trying to cover up complaints against the land slide of complaints for this company. I would chalk this one up to just a disgruntle tech if I did not see more counter complaints of the same nature against other customers.

Mochahost even has negative reviews on amazon.com, which I think is rather weird

http://www.amazon.com/mochahost-com/product-reviews/B0001WRHDA/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

And there is more:

http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.mochahost.com/type/add-review

http://www.vistainter.com/reviews/M/mochahost.com/

http://www.webhost4lifereview.com/mochahost-web-hosting-reviews-coupon-code/

They have a C rating at the moment with the Better Business Bureau, though from some posts it was d – and f.

http://sanjose.bbb.org/Business-Report/Mochahost-235786

Even Webhostingstuff.com can’t hide all the negative reviews for Mochahost.com that are pouring in for the last 30 days.

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/MochaHost.html

Just to be on the safe side I figured I will copy a sample of those complaints in the last 30 days just in case.

support muppets (Poor) – by Chris (commonfx.eu) on 17 June 2010

MochaHost is the worst hosting ever (Poor) – by A (running-ball.com) on 15 June 2010

very bad support (Poor) – by sandeep (sarthi.net) on 11 June 2010

Too many layers between customer and true support (Poor) – by Rob (droppingdeuce.com) on 5 June 2010

Very poor support and billing system (Poor) – by Helmuth (ozwa.info) on 3 June 2010

Stay away from this host! (Poor) – by Bert(whitesiteservices.com) on 21 May 2010

Only Hostingsthatsuck.com is the only one without negative reviews for Mochahost, or do they?

http://www.hostingsthatsuck.com/mochahost-sucks/

Clearly they did not do enough research as all of what I found in regards to complaints greater then 10. Thats unless you scroll past “So our verdict: Hostingsthatsuck.com Recommends MochaHost for beginners “, You find:

Updated: Due to the more recent negative comments and feedbacks from our visitors, we are now also recommending an alternative hosting plan byInMotion Hosting. See below for their custom-fit packages priced from only $3 monthly! You pay for what you need and all packages come with cPanel and eCommerce-ready support. Our InMotion hosting review is as good, if not better than about the above webhost. If you have any doubt at all about the above web hosting service, get inMotion hosting instead. If you are asking for another webhost recommendation, inMotion hosting is your answer.

They did not bother to remove their glowing review, and still have a coupon to use to buy hosting from this company. Looking through there is only one thumb up review, which I suspect was planted by the hosting company.

So you say Mocha Host has awards (Well three awards)

One of which is from C/NET:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6616_102-0.html?threadID=272415

My Finale Thoughts on Mochahost.com

I think it is safe to say that I can close on “mochahost sucks”, there is no point in going any further because I found all of this information in less than 20 minutes. I spent the last 2 hours in reviewing it, and there is still more to review. I see lots of complaints about them not paying their affiliates, and there are not a lot of pro mocha host sites that are using sucks as advertising so I have to wonder if they are true, Like Arvixe Web Solutions, I am bothered by the hostile response to customer complaints. It was simply uncalled for, and worse than Arixe. Going after a customer based on their religion, race, gender, country, and sexuality is simply off limits of any good company. I think it could be possible to forgive a company for a lot of negative reviews, but such an attack is not that easy to forgive.

Are you considering inmotionhosting.com? Caution READ my review before buying!!!

Are my eyes deceiving me? Because the number 6 of 25 webhostingstuff.com webhost In Motion Hosting appears to be on Hurricane Electric servers (he.net). One of the companies I started got its first cPanel start with one of their users called Powersurge.com, some how later I would be tossed off to fastservers.net. It was never clear as to why I mysteriously became a fastservers customer. But I had to deal with a rather un-delightful sales agent named Aaron, who was always happy to talk about new service. But when it came to problems such as faulty servers, he was slow to take action, but quick to blame me or my staff. In addition to their hardware problems (we had a 70% failure rate, and 40% reoccurring rate of failure), there were a lot of network problems with Hurricane Electric. Especially denial of service attacks. The problem was I had 9 servers with them, I can’t remember the amount of clients. But to solve my network issues Fastservers wanted me to buy new servers at their new location. Instead I went with ev1 (who merged with theplanet), as they were offering first month if I gave them a competitors invoice. Fastservers would soon become http://www.layeredtech.com/ right before the last of my servers were moved, Layered Tech was less interested in keeping my business then fast servers. There is a post about Layered Tech coming soon.

During one of the worst Hurricane Electric outages one of fast servers staff broke down and made claims on their forum that he did not know if the connection would ever be restored. It was eventually restored after a long and sleepless night, but I would love to find that link, I am pretty sure like most negative things about fast servers Aaron had a hand in cleaning it up. I don’t have the highest expectations that Hurricane Electric has gotten better since I left. So I can’t imagine in motion hosting customers have a lot of thrilling tales about up time and network speed. Maybe their location had better uptime then my location, I have doubts.

Inmotionhosting.com is another company that uses the same level of high payouts that other companies that use webhosting review websites.

  • 1 – 2 Sales Per Month: $50 Per Sale
  • 3+ Sales Per Month: $100 Per Sale

Also:

  • Please Note: InMotion Hosting has a strict policy against ‘Self-Sign Ups’ or attempts to earn commissions on your own hosting accounts.

Its hard to find bad things about in motion hosting. Probable due to the fact that there are so many variations to type inmotion, that it might cause confusion when posting or finding places to post. My recommendation if you ever want to make a bad post about this company is to stick with inmotionhosting.com, of for that matter a good review. Though it does not appear the affiliates and top host review sites are having the same problem. So for now I am going to focus on the order form and the terms of service.

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/policies.html

I figure due to the fact that their cheapest plan is only purchasable in 2 years terms, it might be a good idea to look at the refund policy. I understand why they might want to charge per year and 2 years, those $.22 – .35 fee per attempted transaction on credit cards really eat into a $3 fee over 24 months of monthly billing.

  • Notifications of cancellation must be made 30 days prior to successive rebill period. InMotion Hosting reserves the right to deny, forfeit, or refuse refunds at any time if necessary.

I think that is enough to address my concerns. Clear as day, they can refuse to give you a refund. Also if you cancel your account on the 3rd day of the 23rd month of your hosting account, you will be charged for another 2 years.

I have also noticed that they do not have PayPal as an option on their checkout. I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of PayPal. But I consider them a necessary evil, especially when up to 20 % of my clients paid that way. Plus I was more likely to win a dispute through PayPal then my merchant. Otherwise they are not the easiest people to get a hold of, plus it takes almost nothing to kill a subscription, regardless if I or my client wanted it canceled.

I am a little surprised while looking at the order form to see that they include frontpage extensions, considering I have not seen a request for that in years. I am currently looking at the starter which most people will sign up on. It offers 100 gigs of space, 1000 gigs of bandwitdh. Further review of this package tells me that its no better then a unlimited package, maybe worse then a unlimited package. There are a lot of limitations that would make it impossible to use the full amount of space that they offer.

I also see no option for WordPress or other blogger applications on the starter. The reason for that probable is because there are no mysql data bases on the starter package. I am not sure how anyone is going to use a 100 gigs of space when their account has no mysql databases. Its a little unclear but it looks like I can only get one domain on the starter package.

I thought I would look at their Pro the only package under Business Class that has monthly terms, the first thing that sticks out when I go to the Shopping cart is:

  • 1 Month – $19.95/mo + $40 Setup

That is a pretty high step-up fee, which I am sure is non-refundable. But that’s not all that sticks out:

  • Supports: 16 Separate Web Sites, Unlimited domains with email (see terms) and 200 MySQL Databases

Support 16 websites, yet unlimited domains? See terms?

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/policies.html

Unlimited Disk Space & Bandwidth

  • While IMH does not meter disk space & bandwidth, the purpose of an IMH hosting account is to host web sites. Using a hosting account primarily for online file storage or archiving electronic files is prohibited.
  • IMH Personal & Business Class hosting are shared hosting environments, so to ensure fast & reliable service to all of our clients, accounts that adversely affect server or network performance must correct these issues or will be asked to upgrade to a virtual or dedicated server.

Still not clear on what is meant by 16 sites, with unlimited domains. But lets take a look at the bottom of the terms of service.

  • IMH does not make implied or written warranties for any of our services.
  • IMH denies any warranty or merchantability for a specific purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by IMH.

Still not clear, and I find there are no guarantees that their service will work. Not to mention no warranty should they be the cause of my service interruption.  Sounds like a great webhost.

Awards? Yes inmotionhosting.com has afflialates….. I mean Awards!!!

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/about.html

Webhostingstuff.com, Hostaz.com and more phoney baloney review for pay websites.

I could go into each of the awards, but I would be repeating myself on many of these sites as to why they are affiliates, and not true review sites.

The Inmotionhosting.com chat session.

After reviewing their terms of service, package, and order form I had questions. I was particularly disturbed with what I had found.

My chat session started with 8 people ahead of me, but I was soon forwarded to a chat operator.

You are now speaking with Brian C. of Sales.

Brian C.: (8:9): Hello Benjamin.

Benjamin: (8:10): Hello Brian

Brian C.: (8:10): How may I help you today?

Benjamin: (8:10): I have questions, first let me ask can I pay by PayPal, I don’t see the option on your orderform

Brian C.: (8:11): If we place the order for you via chat or email we can accept Pay Pal on 6 mnth or longer billing.

Benjamin: (8:11): ok, why is it not on the order form?

Brian C.: (8:12): Due to how Pay Pal is processed we have to place the order so we can do a request for payment via Pay Pal.

Benjamin: (8:12): strange, you should consider whmcs

Brian C.: (8:12): What type of hosting plan were you looking to get setup on?

Benjamin: (8:13): well I am still looking at the moment

Brian C.: (8:13): Also we do prefer to take all orders via phone or chat to ensure everything is setup properly the first time and to avoid mistakes.

Benjamin: (8:13): Am I correct on that I can not install wordpress on the starter and it only has one domain?

Brian C.: (8:13): The starter under Value class hosting?

Benjamin: (8:13): yes

Brian C.: (8:14): Or were you referring to the Launch plan?

Benjamin: (8:14): the $3 per month plan

Brian C.: (8:15): No as Word Press requires a MYSQL database. If using WordPress you would want a minimum of the Launch plan. Also we do not accept Pay Pal on Value class hosting.

Benjamin: (8:15): If I place a order via your ordersystem with out contacting you on chat or phone how long will it take to get the order setup?

Brian C.: (8:16): After you place the order the confirmation / fraud check will take up to 30 minutes. After that process is completed a confirmation specialist will need to give you a call to go through all the information. After that call the account will be setup.

Benjamin: (8:17): also you did not answer me if the starter only gets one domain

Brian C.: (8:18): Correct.

Benjamin: (8:18): On the Pro (business class) it says that I can have 16 separate websites, yet unlimited domains. Can you clarify on that?

Brian C.: (8:19): The unlimited domain names are referring to parked domains which are pointers basically. For example www.abc.net would point to abc.com.

Benjamin: (8:19): ok, finale question

Benjamin: (8:19):
I see a graphic that states 30 or 90 day guarantee, does it matter what I order to get the 90 day?

Brian C.: (8:20): All Value class hosting includes only a 30 day money back guarantee. Business class has a 90 day.

Benjamin: (8:20): sorry one more question

Benjamin: (8:21): Usually I sign up for the max amount of time for optimum savings

Brian C.: (8:21): I completely understand.

Benjamin: (8:21): Lets say I experience a long period of down time and I am force to move my account to get active again

Brian C.: (8:22): We have actually maintained 99.98% uptime across the board since 2001.

Benjamin: (8:22): and its after 30 days would I be eligible for a refund, and how much

Brian C.: (8:22): We do not give refunds past the specified time.

Benjamin: (8:22): are you on hurricane electric servers?

Benjamin: (8:22): or should I say network

Brian C.: (8:23): Our datacenter is tier 3 datacenter utilizing 30 day diesel generators.

Brian C.: (8:23): We also on business class and above offer multiple bandwidth providers over multiple OC-48 lines.

Benjamin: (8:23): the trace route shows he.net, and I was on their network before

Brian C.: (8:27): Unfortunately that trace route is inaccurate as we are not on he.net network. Also the network depends on which hosting plan and server you are tracing.

Benjamin: (8:27): I am tracing your main domain

Benjamin: (8:28): what state are your servers located in?

Brian C.: (8:29): We have two data centers. One in Los Angeles and one in Washington D.C.

Benjamin: (8:30): ok thank you, have a good day

Nice how there chat sessions have a time stamps.

My Finale Thoughts on inmotionhosting.com

I got my answer on how a site can have 16 sites yet unlimited domains. Its not really unlimited domains, and I know of many domain registers that allow you to just forward your domain where you want. The bottom line is you get 16 websites hosted under 16 domains. Nothing unlimited about the domains, other then you can set them up as many as you want to forward to one of the 16 domains / sites under their pro plan.

I think the biggest red flag I get from this company is the fact that they offer no refunds regardless of the reason for canceling the account. As out lined in there own policy even if it was their fault that you canceled. My suggestion is to go the bbb if you have problems with getting a refund, though there is no guarantee that they can help you or for that matter will not take inmotion’s side. But every drop in the bucket counts

http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/InMotion-Hosting-Inc-13192913

I did not mean to get out of customer mode in the chat. Instead of trying to point their network location, I should have got him to concede in regards to a refund would happen after extended down time. After all what do they have to worry about if they have no down time. I don’t buy that they are not using Hurricane Electric. Perhaps I am wrong.

http://he.net/ip_transit.html

Equinix LA1 600 W 7th Ave, Los Angeles CA 90017
One Wilshire 624 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90017

Then there is the PayPal issue, they don’t indicated that its available. You have to ask for it on chat or by phone. Its limited to certain types of accounts, and no less then 6 months or longer as out line by some of the complaints I have found.

http://forum.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=12450

Its not that hard to configure for that matter I used to manually generate subscriptions before we got a new billing system. It was a bit cumbersome, but no where near as bad as sending out billing notices every month. Every day one of my staff would review the previous days subscription payments and enter them into the billing system. Atleast until we got a new billing system that still processed if for us. But we did weekly audits to ensure all payments were tracked.  But “Due to how Pay Pal is processed we have to place the order so we can do a request for payment via Pay Pal.”, meaning they login to PayPal.com and send you a money request.

The website looks out of date, which makes me wonder if they are using an outdated billing system as the order form is not that impressive. The failure to have a PayPal on that system makes me wonder how out of date their billing system may be or for that matter how secure it might be. I can understand wanting to call to confirm my order is valid. But not every customer wants to be called. The setup questions are obscure at best on the order form. Setup questions could be addressed on the order form.

Basically if you choose to go with InMotionHosting, you better hope that nothing goes wrong. Because they reserve the right to refuse a refund.

More fun Reading

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-368804.html

HostGator = Bad Web Host? Read Honest HostGator Review

Disclaimer: The content has undergone modifications for grammatical corrections and to update inactive links, utilizing Archive.org where feasible. Videos no longer available from original sources have been substituted with alternatives or indicated as missing, and any instances where replacements couldn’t be found are clearly noted. For reference to the original article as it was, https://web.archive.org/web/20230930130451/https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/unlimited-hosting/hostgator-bad-web-host-read-honest-hostgator-review.html

We now come to Hostgator number 5 on the top 25 and #5 of 10,293. with webhostingstuff.com. The only host whose top 25 ranking matches its popularity ranking. Also, Hostgator is the only company with a single-digit ranking in traffic popularity on webhostingstuff.com. It does not seem that in the last 2 years, HostGator has been able to get past number 5 in the rankings despite their growing popularity claims.   You would think they could at least beat Arvand.  Perhaps hostgator paid in advance for their “advertising” on webhostingstuff.com for that 5th spot. I would suggest contacting webhostingstuff.com to get a push-up on those rankings; perhaps HostGator can get in a bidding war with iPage for that number 1 spot… sorry I meant advertising Webhostingstuff.com does not “sell” rankings *eye roll*.  Did I forget to mention the mysterious disappearing negative fee back?

Hostgator has no problem listing awards from websites that are nothing more than elaborate or not-so-elaborate affiliates.

http://www.hostgator.com/reviews.shtml *Only an ERROR 404 page in June 2010 was recorded on Archive.org*

Only a few offer an award that doesn’t have an affiliate link or, better yet, a coupon.  Webhostingstuff.com is on the list.

Though one of the affiliates……….. I mean, award sites do not have all good reviews:

http://www.reviewshut.com/web-hosting/hostgator.html *Updated with Archive.org link*

I am unsure of the point of these “awards” when most sites don’t have any visible advertising other than coupons and affiliate links.  Clearly, they have to pay for their hosting somehow, and is anyone going to write tons of content for nothing?  After all, will you bad-mouth an organization that will pay you $50 – $125 per sign-up, or will you sing their praises? This is nothing more than a list of reviews for profit, not an unbiased setup like Consumer Reports.

Hostgator Affiliate Program(s)

So far, I see that Hostgator.com has two commission programs. One at Commission Junction and their own.

Through Commission Junction, you get a flat $100 fee per sign-up

At Hostgator.com directly

  • 1-5 a month, $50 per sign up
  • 6-10 a month, $75 per sign up
  • 11-20 a month, $100 per sign up
  • 21+ a month, $125 per sign up

It appears that, unlike other companies I have reviewed, this is on any term, monthly or higher terms.

Depending on your marketing skills, you’re better off with Commission Junction if you are not that great. If you’re really good, you’re better off with Hostgator.com.

But the big payouts are the reason why they are growing so fast. Just like the other 4 hosts I reviewed, they have a large payout that encourages their affiliates to flood the search engines with tons of crap.  You can see this when you do a search on “host gator sucks”, real complaints are hidden in between the “I have your coupon” sites and other affiliates.

Hostgartor.com likes to brag about numbers, which makes people believe they are legitimate operations. This is why I got so many comments on my video from people who need a lesson on ethics: having money does not mean you need to cheat. Their large numbers are based on a high payout.  I would love to know the amount of cancellations versus the number of new orders. The amount of refunds. How about operating costs? Numbers that I don’t see. Their company may be growing, but they are going to suffer losses. Another number I would like to see is the number of affiliate payouts. What they are paying Commission Junction, after all, is that the affiliate gets $100 per sign-up, and Commission Junction is not a free operation.

Then there is this link: http://www.googlelady.com/1281/exhostgator-employee/*Updated with Archive.org link*

I am not sure how valid the information is, but there are several points that ring true, such as the affiliate program. But anyone can look that up. Its not like the person she is supposedly interviewing is not disgruntled or, for that matter, real. However, having worked at Wal-Mart during my college years, I know that those benefits that drew me in were not immediately available and had many catches. Two examples were their health insurance and college tuition programs. They claimed I had to be a full-time employee (it did not matter; I was working 40 hours a week for 18 months). But on the flip side, I have been with good employers that had dirt thrown at them that were lies, such as one company where I only had to wait 30 days for my health insurance to kick in. But I have to wonder if HostGator employee pages http://www.hostgator.com/benefits.shtml *link dead, no Archive.org link* is nothing more than veneer.  After all, they have to make sacrifices somewhere to make sure that their affiliates drive those big numbers and drown out the negative feedback.

Unlimited Hostgator.com plan, you must use this much space in order to apply

http://blog.hostgator.com/2008/10/20/all-you-can-eat-hosting/*Updated with Archive.org link*

I am not sure how many customers read the cartoon and saw the irony in Hostgator talking about the wonders of overselling and unlimited space. But a thick guy who is not slim enough to eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet next to what is a mock “you must be this tall” roll coaster ride sign, indicating you must be this thin to enter.  Subliminal truth?

The Hostgator.com Traceroute

Tracing route to hostgator.com [67.18.54.28]…
hop rtt rtt rtt ip address fully qualified domain name

1 1 1 1 70.84.211.97 61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
2 90 1 1 70.87.254.5 po101.dsr02.dllstx5.theplanet.com
3 0 0 0 70.85.127.109 po52.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com
4 9 1 1 70.87.253.122 te1-3.dsr02.dllstx2.theplanet.com
5 1 0 0 70.87.254.94 te1-2.car09.dllstx2.theplanet.com
6 1 1 0 67.18.54.28 gator.hostgator.com

Even though HostGator has its own building, it does not appear to have its own server center, and like the first three companies I reviewed, they are also using theplanet.com.

Final thoughts on whether anyone should buy from Hostgator.com.

Even though Hostgator.com is only in the 5th position, they probably should be in the top position at webhostingstuff.com. Granted, I consider the top 25 hosts a list for the top 25 to avoid because their main concern is raking in money, not investing in infrastructure that advances their services. Developing “unlimited” / “overselling” is not investing in infrastructure but concentrating on the misinformed worldwide consumer who may not understand that you get what you pay for. Bernie Madoff did the same thing with over-optimistic promises of high returns on investments.  Anyone who offers a higher than 100% commission on a first payment is more interested in bringing customers in than keeping them.

*Dead Video*

This is my own personal rant against hostgator.com

Hostgator.com has been a good host for me in many ways, and I am not saying it because I hosted with them. I say that because I would get a lot of their dissatisfied customers. Customers who thought before HostGator that my prices were too high only turned around and realized that being cheap on your source of income was not all that smart. For that matter, I think at the time, I loved hostgator.com, at least until I saw this post back in February 2009:

http://blog.hostgator.com/2009/02/06/bad-economy-good-for-hostgator/ *Updated with Archive.org link*

It was as if Hostgator was telling everyone in the United States we have jobs, but you ignored us.  They’re a big host, but it does not mean everyone is going to know who they are.  So, in the search for jobs, they are not at the top of your list.  Better yet, not everyone is going to have the skills to deal with computers and customer service. My grandfather was a soft-spoken person, awesome at fixing cars and generally anything mechanical.  He would not have the first idea of how to use a computer. I could not imagine him trying to handle customer service on the phone, as he is not very loud.

Somehow, the 10% employment was a result of people being lazy. It had nothing to do with the mismanagement of companies, the deregulation to prevent those companies from being corrupt, or did it? Apparently Brent has never had to go door to door with a resume. What job that you might be able to get barely pays the bills, so you have to get a second job, and still, it’s not enough. The jobs you have skills for won’t hire you because you have no experience (in my case) or are too old (my grandfather’s case). The first job I had to settle for did not even involve a resume but an application. I am sorry, Brent, but you need to walk in the shoes of the people who are getting welfare before complaining about handouts. I encountered these problems when I was in school, and my scholarship, which only covered so many of my expenses, had to be supplemented. The effort to find a secondary source of income was killing my grades. Yes there are deadbeats, and even those that milk the system to get a nice paycheck from the government. But it’s not everyone.

But this is coming from someone pretending to be a bum for a day:

*Hostgator removed the video, and this is the only copy I can find*

Oh, look, I see my video to the side when you go to YouTube to view his video 🙂

Review Arvixe. Is arvixe.com a bad host? Arvixe Sucks? Complaints?

Back in the early years of my self-employment, my business partner and I would brain storm with domains. Though I think it was more of a war of philosophies. Alot of the time I would buy the domains I thought had value, though admittedly I have close 500 domains that are doing nothing, over 10 years.  He never would have bought a domain like yahoo.com or google.com. I would, I like that they are unique yet easy to spell, and not to mention stick in your mind. My philosophy had always been to make it memorable, not always short, and make sure it can be spelled with out much thought.. His would be some sort of business philosophy he picked up from forums and other so called “gurus”. But I think we can both agree this is not a domain either of us would have picked. While it fits my desire of short, I doubt people that first see the domain are going to remember how to spell it on the fly. After all what is a arvixe? It seems that they have the monopoly on the term and its probable made up.

But before I go any further into how I think a domain should be, that’s really not something in relation to bad hosts.   They have an affiliate program like the first three, but they are not on commission junction. Which means they are another high payout, that encourages tons of crap when you try to look for information on a webhost.

https://affiliates.arvixe.com/

What I found in regards to search engine results about arvixe is disturbing.

http://www.yelp.com/topic/redwood-city-bad-review-and-complaint-about-arvixe-com-web-hosting-company-and-godaddy-com

In a nut shell customer tried to order service from a site that promises 24 / 7 tech support and prompt set up of order. After not receiving the order the customer tried to contact the company during a day and could not reach anyone. I can’t say I would not be alarmed after giving my credit card information to a company that had no one to contact. So customer went to yelp.com to complain. Arvixe choose to to counter response, and apparently their response to their customer was so inappropriate yelp.com deleted it. For the most part the other reviewers were with the person who posted the complaint. When someone brought up complaining to the BBB, Arvixe was quick to state the person was not a customer because they did not take their money. Not to mention argued the point that they never signed up. As far as I can tell they never addressed the inability to be contacted. Perhaps this person is lying, but there is nothing that indicates that they were. But as far as I am concerned, until you tell someone their order was declined after taking their credit card the person is a customer. Simply not responding to their emails or phone calls…….. hiding from them is not an indicator that someone is not a customer. I wonder what their merchant would think of this philosophy.

Then on their own forum.

http://forum.arvixe.com/smf/general/what-is-meant-by-ddos-when-applied-to-arvixe/?wap2

One of their customers found complaints about dos (Denial of Service) attacks. The customer wanted clarification. Arvand who seems to appear where ever there is a complaint did not treat this person like a customer, but more of an attacker. Ever where I see Arvixe complaints that allow for posting, I find Arvand attacking the negative feed back. I wonder if the customer signed up for 2 years, I know I would not. It it was me I would have stated when the last dos attack was, and what we do to prevent them and if in the rare case they get through what we do to fix it. Because this post and every post Arvand has gone against only add more fuel in not buying from them. This was defiantly not a place to be defensive, this was a time to give a customer cool and calm response.

My question is when do they have problems do they take responsibility for them, or are they going to attack the customer that asks what the cause of the problem is. I have said things in the heat of the moment I wish I had not said, but I can count on one hand the amount of times over 11 years. But that is not the case for this company. Instead its a policy of attacking the customer, and I don’t see much point in reviewing a company that engages in such a philosophy any further.

Bottom line, I don’t recommend this host. Even if they were not using over the top affiliate payouts and sites like webhostingstuff.com (Traffic Popularity: #77 of 10,293 companies) to get a position that was not earned. Their responses to problems is not acceptable, and I tend to wonder what problems are going on behind the scenes when every response is a defense mode. I don’t see much point in further review of this company, or future reviews unless they change their philosophy of attacking the messenger.  There is no point in hosting with a company like this.

Fatcow Sucks? Beware – Read this Fatcow Review first before Buying!!!

So next one, number 3 on webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 is sort of a revisit of another company, iPage. However this is what webhostingstuff.com’s page for fatcow says “Site Established: 29 Sep 1997 (12 years and 262 days ago) – Traffic Popularity: #46 of 10,293 companies. Some how its number three and in the forty sixth spot. If you read my previous post you will know that webhostingstuff.com was blocking me, which I will write a post later demonstrating how I did it. At this point thanks to my isp, I have a new ip and the site is working again.

This time around instead of jumping into a trace route, as I am sure it will be the same as iPage. I am going to go through the affiliate program which works three different ways from their home grown program. I did not look to see if iPage had their own affiliate program, as I did not think at the time a company would want more then one system. But I should have looked at the partnership link at the bottom of the page. For which you get paid three different ways.

http://www.fatcow.com/referral/programs.bml

At Commission Junction The affiliate program is the same as iPage.com, $100 – $125 payout per sale.

Speaking of affiliates, it appears there are a lot of complaints in regards to payments in a lot of the complaints I have found online. Another complaint I see is down time. Due to the complaints of affiliate payments that are rampant in search engine results, I would not recommend using fatcow’s affiliate program directly.

I almost have to wonder if fatcow has busy work for the web designers, or just a really busy auto blogger program:

http://www.fatcowreview.org/

Amazingly a organization that used the same graphics as Fatcow. I can’t say I find it surprising that they are hosting the site at Fatcow.com. Perhaps the same person that did the design for fatcow was paid to start a blog. Its not out of the realm of possibility, after all there are tons of people on elance.com that are willing to perform that sort of service.

Then there is aboutfatcow.com,

I love how these sites all have an “unbiased” opinion, and they also have coupons for a special price. I always wonder why site that’s doing a review about a webhost also has coupon for you to click on to save. Perhaps the whole I have a coupon, I must be your friend theme. You listen to your friends right? I like to think of the coupon as more of a Trojan Horse.

Then there is this post:

http://winkris.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-am-now-fatcow-customer.html

They failed to mention their website hosted with fatcow, and I am more then certain blogspot.com is not hosting with fatcow.com. I don’t see any affiliate links. But I question why someone thinks its ok to pay $20 for a domain when there are tons of fine companies out there you can find without doing much research for cheaper. After all the whole focus is on dirt cheap hosting, yet some how the domain costs $20 to buy. How the heck does a company that is doing so well and selling hosting with free domain, not capable of buying domains for $7 or less? Never mind the fees they pay Commission Junction, affiliates, Google, webhostingstuff.com, and whomever else is promoting them.

Truth be told I don’t know of many customers in my 11 years that are going to spend as much time trying to tell you why they liked my hosting. After all they are generally busy with their own sites. I am happy with what few kind words they could offer out there that are found via search engine results. But the reviews / sites are bit long for a “real” happy customer. Fatcowreview.org is the worst as it reflects on every aspect of their site. Every post / page has a fatcow.com banner to click on. Its not so much a review page as it is a brag page. You would almost have to believe that they were little to fanatic, and almost along the lines of a stalker. Though the truth is its nothing more the automated script that goes through fatcow pulling out material. The lazy method of making money.

Instead of doing a search on “fat cow sucks”, I did one on “fat cow coupon”, based on the amount of people paying for that search engine result I see a new trend.

The iPage and ipower connection

Last time I when I chatted with one of out sourced sales people in India, I was pointed to a connection between fatcow and iPage. Only because the person on the other side asked what link I was referring to, when I told him the main page he still persisted on asking for the link. Clearly a tech that only works with one company is going to know where the link to the main page is. Then there was also the ipowweb.net in the trace route. I believed at the time there were more then two parties involved with this organization. Today I found when doing search with “fatcow bbb”. I am not saying I am fan of the Better Business Bureau, I have a great many complaints about this organization that has not adapted with the times. But this link confirmed my suspicions and raises another.

http://www.bbb.org/boston/business-reviews/internet-services/the-endurance-international-group-inc-in-burlington-ma-76863/

So iPage and Fatcow with 32 other sites are apart of:

Endurance International Group, Inc.

AccountSupport
ApolloHosting
BizLand
BlueDomino
DomainHost
Dot5Hosting
Easy CGI
EasyCGI
eHost
EntryHost
FatCow
FreeYellow
Globat
HostCentric
HostYourSite
HyperMart
IMOutdoorsHosting
Ipower
IPowerWeb
Networkshosting
PowWeb
PureHost
ReadyHosting
Spry
StartLogic
The Endurance International Group, Inc.
USANetHosting
VirtualAvenue
VPSLink
WebHost4Life
Webstrikesolutions
Xeran
YourWebHosting

I don’t see iPage on the list of sites, so I tend to wonder if there are more then what this company lists. But I see Ipowweb on the list thus verifying the connection I was looking for.

But webhostingstuff.com has two interesting reviews in regards to what appears fatcow’s business status:

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/comments/FatCowWebHosting-1156.html

and

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/comments/FatCowWebHosting-23103.html

Both of which at different times 3 years a part had to do with a change in the companies handling.

The Chat Session and the ipower chat

I decided to try the same line of questions I had with iPage. Domains are more costly then iPage.com if you want to keep them $15, iPage was $10.95. But then again the phone call to iPage stated that it was $15.00.

Vanessa Morris: Hi Benjamin. My name is Vanessa, how are you today?
Benjamin: Hello Vanessa
Benjamin: Fine, and yourself?
Vanessa Morris: I’m great, thank you. How can I help you today?
Benjamin: I can not find any information out about the corbanite service
Benjamin: I was wondering if you could tell me about it or provide me with a link with more information
Vanessa Morris: Sure.
Vanessa Morris: Could you please provide me the exact URL where you have clicked this LiveChat icon in our website?
Benjamin: its on the main page of your site?
Vanessa Morris: I would like to see the link.
Benjamin: you website only has one main page, you should be able to see that
Benjamin: fatcow.com
Vanessa Morris: Thank you!
Benjamin: are you supporting other companies?
Vanessa Morris: May I place you on hold for 4 or 5 minutes, while I check this for you?
Benjamin: ok
Vanessa Morris: No, Benjamin. I need link for confirmation.
Vanessa Morris: Did you receive my last message?
Benjamin: I am still waiting on the carbonite info you said would take 4 – 5 minutes
Vanessa Morris: May I place you on hold for 4 or 5 minutes, while I check this for you?
Benjamin: I said “ok”
Vanessa Morris: Thank you for holding.
Vanessa Morris: Please refer:
Vanessa Morris: http://www.fatcow.com/knowledgebase/category.bml?c=565
Benjamin: I am also not sure what you need confirmation for. If you did not work for other companies you would not need a link to know what the main page of a website is.
Benjamin: I will look at that in a sec, I have a few other questions
Vanessa Morris: 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 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: that does not make any sense
Vanessa Morris: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Benjamin: as you would only have one main page and its fatcow.com, not sure what these enhanced chat icons are about.
Benjamin: anyway
Benjamin: If I decided I do not want to keep my hosting account, how much will it cost for me to keep my domain?
Vanessa Morris: If you cancel the account within 30 days and register free domain name, then we will deduct $15 from your refund for domain registration. You can transfer the domain to another registrar.
Benjamin: Your domain fee sounds a bit high, I think I will go with Directnic instead for a domain name. I don’t see the option to get dns sent to me on the order form, only transfer and register a new domain. Do you send me dns information?
Vanessa Morris: Yes, we will send information.
Vanessa Morris: If you wish, I will signup without any issue from our end.
Benjamin: I still need review your terms of service first
Benjamin: and I have only 2 more questions
Benjamin: Where are you located?
Vanessa Morris: Burlington, MA.
Benjamin: the servers as well?
Vanessa Morris: No, it is located in Boston.
Benjamin: Thanks Vanessa, the only thing that troubles me is the whole not knowing what your main page is, it really does not have me to confident that your not working for other companies.
Benjamin: anyway, I will look over the link for carbonite and should sign up if I like what I see
Vanessa Morris: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Vanessa Morris: If you wish to signup, please contact me.
Vanessa Morris: I will do it for you.
Vanessa Morris: Ask my name in chat.
Benjamin: ok have a good day
Vanessa Morris: Thank you for chatting. Take care and have a good day!

Vanessa, or whomever is playing as Vanessa in Mangalore, India. Was not willing to give me as much details as the guy in my chat with iPage.com. But like last time I was asked for the page I was asking for. Also there was that long pause (6 minutes) where I was waiting for information on one of their features. Which was beyond the 4 -5 minutes it took to Google their site for where the info might be.

Just for giggles I decided to chat with them again, since they were asking me for the webpage I though I would give them one different then ipage.com or fatcow.com:

Jerold King: Hi Benjamin. My name is Jerold King, how are you today?
Benjamin: Hello Jerold, I am fine how are you?
Benjamin: I can not find any information out about the corbanite service.
Jerold King: I’m great, thank you.
Jerold King: Can you please provide me with the website link where exactly you have clicked the Live Chat icon?
Benjamin: ipower
Jerold King: You can check for the Corbanite service at:
Jerold King: http://www.ipower.com/product/carbonite.bml
Benjamin: thanks
Jerold King: Thank you for chatting with us. Please feel free to contact us at any time. We are available 24×7.

Jerold (or whomever he claims to be), decided to end our chat session rather quickly after giving me a link to ipower.com. Not giving me a chance to get more details or ask other questions. So there is defiantly more then one company involved in their support system. Perhaps why the chat system asked for an account id, as well as ticket number. I might try and get an account with them later to test the system out.

The Phone Call: Searching for Vanessa Morris of Fatcow.com

The phone call was more interesting, because I asked to speak to Vanessa. Did I think I would get her (or is it he)? No, not at all. I did however expect fumbling around excuse after excuse as to why I could not. I was not disappointed, and now believe I need to start recording these phone calls. The phone operator I spoke to was in Phoenix Arizona, so within driving distance of myself. Not on the north eastern part of the country like Vanessa (who probable was not a Vanessa, and was probable on the opposite side of the planet from me). Perhaps this call center is actually http://bobcares.com/ an outsourcing company.

Clearly another company I can not recommend based on complaints of downtime, refund issues, over the top affiliate payments, and promises of unlimited space.

Justhost Just Sucks? Warning – Read this Justhost review first …

Second on the list is JustHost.com, I first mentioned this host when I brought up hostingsthatsuck.com.

Forgive me while I figure and fine tune the format. At the same time I had originally thought that I could spend part of my free time in a day and do a single review on each hosting company. There is a lot of information out there on just iPage.com and JustHost,com. Spending an hour to sum up as much information as I find is not really all that feasible. So I will try to get what I can get out, and revisit these hosts when I review other webhosting review websites to expose. But here is what I dug up:

Looking at the trace route for this site I get the following information:

Traceroute to justhost.com [67.225.149.185]…

61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
po101.dsr02.dllstx5.theplanet.com
po52.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com
2d.ff.5746.static.theplanet.com
gigabitethernet7-3.ar2.dal2.gblx.net
giglinx.tengigabitethernet3-1.ar5.chi2.gblx.net
w-dc2-core3-te9-1.rtr.liquidweb.com
www.justhost.com

I see liquidweb.com, who appears to be on theplanet.com’s servers. Its starting to seem that all webhosts are on theplanet.com’s servers.  Not a lot I can take from the trace route, but I like to look at where a hosts physical location might be.

A Rabid Advertising Campaign:

The bulk of my look at Justhost.com is that they seem to be on a rather aggressive advertising campaign. They seem to appear every where over night back in 2009. Which brings me to hostingsthatsuck.com. Hostingsthatsuck.com wants you to believe that there a great company with almost no negative feedback, despite the fact they did not suck. Atleast that is how it was at first, but later they changed it to they did suck so they had to recommend another host, but you had to scroll past the glowing review and affiliate link to see the disclaimer. But finale they changed the page and put this up:

“Firstly, maybe we can take the negative feedbacks about any web hosting with a pinch of salt. According to a study conducted by America’s premier customer services research firm, TARP, customers are more likely to speak about a company when things go wrong rather than when they go right. On average, customers are twice as likely to talk about a bad experience as they are to share a positive one. So we can safely say that for every negative comment about Justhost, there are two more good Justhost reviews we did not hear about.”

However their original review as well as their policy to say something sucks, but not really while applying what they call an “unbiased” seems to have a copy cat site where the original post was later re-posted:

http://reviews.azhan.com/web-hosting/17/not-one-of-those-just-host-reviews.html

The problem is suck is not the only negative meaning that would turn someone from buying (fraud, downtime, up-time, terrible, bad, incoherent, poor, nasty, lame, evil, stupid, cheat …………….) I figured while looking, why not see what I get when I search for “just host sucks”, and to the left of google is 2 sites that are using those terms for their adwords: 10-cheapwebhosting.com & webhostingdeals.org. Most of the sites on the first page of search engine results are affiliates. Hostingsthatsuck.com (that has no actual hosts that suck on it that I can see now), used complaints that did not seem valid to validate their “not” sucking.  But I have found a lot of complaints in regards to orders not being set up, and issues with getting it up or getting a refund. Multiple complaints of downtime and deleted content. In some cases people were told that they deleted their own content. I supposed you can trust these affiliates that choose to market on the word sucks with just host. All of which try (or not) to sound like some unbiased site that want to convince you that justhost.com is the host for you. So where are they hosting?

Domain Name: 10-CHEAPWEBHOSTING.COM
Name Server: NS2153.HOSTGATOR.COM
Name Server: NS2154.HOSTGATOR.COM
Domain Name:WEBHOSTINGDEALS.ORG
Name Server:NS.INMOTIONHOSTING.COM
Name Server:NS2.INMOTIONHOSTING.COM
How about the sites that are using suck to determine if a host sucks (or really just trying to get you to buy Justhost hosting)?
Domain Name: HOSTINGSTHATSUCK.COM
Name Server: NS553.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Name Server: NS554.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Websitewelcome.com is Hostgator.com
Domain Name: AZHAN.COM
Name Server: NS1.NAME.COM
Name Server: NS2.NAME.COM

None of the 4 sites that I have looked at, and for that matter no site that promotes justhost.com as the host to use, are hosting on justhost.com. After all if they are so good, why are they not using them?

So why are they everywhere in the search engines?  JustHost.com seems to have two affilate programs.  Both of which have rather heavy pay outs, enough to encourage anyone and their dog to do what ever it takes to get their site in the top of search engine results.  Their own personally ran affiliate program can be found at:

http://www.justhost.com/affiliate-program

Also they use Commission Junction, their policy is:

We are a first class web hosting provider that offer free domains, unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and the ability to host unlimited domains. We are committed to making web hosting simple and understandable for every user. We have ensured our sign up process is as straightforward as possible to ensure customers have no problems setting up their account. Customers will usually receive their login details within 10 minutes of subscribing, making the process swift and efficient for both the customer and the affiliate.

Just Host’s affiliate program gives you the ability to make up to $200 per sale and an additional $100 if you convert over 10 sales in a month. We offer two plans each available for 6, 12, 24 and 36 months, a sale qualifies as a subscription to any of these plans. Please see our commission structure below:

  • Just Plan & Premium Semi-Annual sign-up – $100
  • Just Plan 12, 24 and 36 month sign-up – $100
  • Just Premium 12, 24 and 36 month sign-up – $120
  • Just Reseller sign-up – $200!

We also offer an incentive of $100 if an affiliate sends us over 10 sales in 1 month. Our cookie referral period is 30 days. Just Host has a variety of banners, skyscapers and buttons to suit all sites along with text and content links.

We are heavily promoting Just Host online and in print. This exposure will greatly increase our customer base and our conversion rate which is one of the highest in our industry will continue to grow with our customers.

The Just Host team has over 10 years experience in web hosting and are dedicated to providing customers with the most reliable web hosting service possible. We guarantee affordable price plans, secure servers, first class 24/7 tech support and a wide range of features.

Looking at both it seems clear the one to go with if you want a big payout, its commission junction and not JustHosts.com own affilate program. Both of which have rather insane payouts like iPage.com.

At the same time while they claim being 10 years old to their affiliates on commission junction, their domain registration says the domain was bought in 2002.

http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/Just-Hostcom-100076574

They claim on the BBB site that they were founded in 2002. But I have serious doubts, as the oldest piece of information that I have seen is no latter then 2008. I suspect that justhost.com was just unused aged domain. I have many that I have never used some that are over 10 years old. I suspect this is the same case with justhost.com and they are blatantly lying about their start date.

I admit they are a fast growing operation, but I imagine this is nothing more then another arm of another hosting operation. Much like what iPage.com is to fatcow.com. Its not my concern what they tell their affiliates, but that’s going to be what the affiliates tell people when they try to refer people.

Onto the chat and phone call with Justhost.com

I thought I would chat and call them since I had read a lot of complaints about English problems. I can tell you that there was a lot of copying and pasting going on. I actually stumped the person on chat for a whole three minutes on how much it would cost to keep my domain. $20 is a bit much. From the chat I could not see a lot of problems with English use, but this was just sales and clearly a lot of copy and past to my answers, due to cases where text was pasted and sent soon after one another.

Chat start time Jun 13, 2010 5:23:09 PM EST

Chat end time Jun 13, 2010 5:30:55 PM EST

Duration (actual chatting time) 00:07:46

Operator Andrew

Chat Transcript

info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

info: You are now chatting with ‘Andrew’

Andrew: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?

Benjamin: Hello Andrew, I just found your site had a few questions

Benjamin: If I change my mind how and decided to cancel, how much will my domain cost to keep?

Andrew: If you cancel your account we will provide you with a full refund for the remainder of your term, excluding any setup fees that were charged when you signed up, and excluding domain registration fees. (Even if you received your domain for free through one of our promotional plans)

Andrew: The domain registration fee we incur on each domain registration is $20.00. So all refunds are subject to a $20.00 registration fee charge, but you will own the domain name afterwards.

Benjamin: Your cost seems a bit high on the domain, I think I will go to another domain register for my domain. On the order form it only indicates buy new domain or transfer. Do you give me dns so I can change it with my domain register?

Andrew: So you want to signup hosting with your existing domain, right ?

Benjamin: a domain I am buying from godaddy

Benjamin: $20 is a bit much if I decided I do not like your company

Andrew: Ok… For this select the option ‘I already own my domain name’. In this case your domain will stay with your registrar and you can host it with us. Also, please note that we initiate the transfer of domain only if you place a request with us for the same.

Andrew: Our name servers are as below

Andrew: ns1.pipedns.com: 67.212.177.42

Andrew: ns2.pipedns.com: 99.198.106.66

Andrew: ns3.pipedns.com: 99.198.106.74

Benjamin: that will not try to transfer my domain?

Andrew: Right

Benjamin: ok

Benjamin: where are your servers located?

Andrew: Our Data Center is in Chicago US

Benjamin: are you located at that center?

Andrew: Yes

Benjamin: nice, many hosts don’t seem to staff their centers.

Benjamin: thanks I will order sometime tonight.

Andrew: You are most Welcome !!

Andrew: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Benjamin: nope have a good day

Andrew: Thank you for visiting Hosting Support. Should you have any queries or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Andrew: We are pleased to bring to your attention the following offer.

Andrew: Let us take away any worries of accidental deletion or modification of your website or files by backing up your site on a daily basis. If you ever need a previous days backup, just let us know and we will happily restore or upload backups for you – $19.95 per year.

Andrew: Have a nice day!! Good Bye.

______________________

After I said “nope have a good day”, I got a barrage of sales copy and pastes, and the operator left before I could ask about the back up service. I figured I would try covering that with a phone call. After the automated system transferred me to sales I was stuck for 3 minutes of ringing. I hung up before trying to see if I could make it 4 minutes. You would figure they would have a answering machine to tell me that they are not open and when to call…… if they were not open.

Onto the JustHost.com complaints:

The BBB has 169 complaints at present, though not all are viewable, here is what the BBB states about those complaints:

“Complainants allege a variety of billing and refund related problems. Customers complain that previously undisclosed fees are added to billings, or that advertisements for service at $3.95 per month failed to disclose that in order to get the discounted rate, customers must agree to be billed two years in advance. Other complainants allege they were unable to send emails or were advised that they must upgrade their service in order for basic services to function properly. Many customers complain they are unable to communicate with the company to resolve problems due to the company’s email only policy, or that tech support does not resolve problems. Some complainants allege the services are not as represented, or that the company falsely advertises a 90% uptime rate. The company responds to complaints by issuing refunds or partial refunds and agreeing to close accounts along with apologies for any inconveniences. One or more complaints are unresolved meaning the company failed to properly address the complaint allegations or their response was inadequate.”

This is not the only organization that has multiple complaints:

http://amplicate.com/sucks/justhost

http://www.trustlink.org/BusinessProfile.aspx?ID=205976637

There are many more non-affiliated sites that are reporting multiple issues with Justhost.com.

The reasons I give to not buy from Justhost.com are as follows:

  1. Probable no more then a 2 year old company at best, and they are using an aged domain name. I can not find much information that shows they were in business prior to 2009. The BBB states they signed up with them in 2009. However I know BBB asks when you start, and don’t actually look for business licenses. Most complaints are in 2009, and I am having a hard time finding anything from 2008 or before then.
  2. Keeping your domain with them is a $20 charge, they claim that’s what it costs them. But there are tons of domain registration programs that cost most hosting companies $8 or less.
  3. Multiple complaints of accounts not being set up when ordered.
  4. Multiple complaints on getting a refund.
  5. Complaints of content being deleted
  6. Complaints of poor tech support, in many cases musical chairs between departments.
  7. Complaints of constant down time
  8. Heavy affiliate commission payouts that encourage false advertising just to make a sale.

Don’t Buy From iPage.Com Until You Read My Review — Save Time And Money!!

Its simply not enough to go after phony 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 re-launched 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 add-on 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 it’s 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 feedback that I have found that iPage.com has no negative feedback 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 somewhat 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 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 transferring 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 than $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 any time 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 than I thought 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 an uncommon name for someone 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?).  It’s 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. It’s clearly cheaper to get hosting from iPage.com then fatcow.com. Which makes me wonder since iPage.com is cheaper, if whatever 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 by.

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 than 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 than a day looking into this. Yet I spent 5 days. I have more content then I care to post, as I could devote a whole site to just what I found on iPage.

.

Webhostingstuff.com, where it all began

This is the site that got me involved into exposing the evils of web reviews and top of lists for pay.

First off lets take a look at their whois information:

Registrant Contact:

   W3Centric Network Pte Ltd
   Michael Low ()
   Fax:
   9 Bukit Batok Central Link
   27-10
   Singapore, SE 658074
   SG

While I can’t off  hand back up with facts, I am going to say that the bulk of webhosting companies are from the United States.   Especially those that webhostingstuff.com lists in their top 1 – 25.  But unlike those companies, this website is clearly not from the United States.  Though at this time they appear to be on SoftLayer Technologies Inc servers.

Here is the link I get a kick out of, and I am sure it was not there when I looked2 years ago.

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/our_ranking.html

In a nut shell they claim to be pure of heart and that they would never delete negative comments (though no claims on not deleting positive feed back on people they do not get paid by).  That there system can keep tracks of the traffic on the 10,530 webhosts listed in their data base (though the site only lists 10,293).  Which is hard to believe, but if it were true they would have number to back up their claims.   But at the same time they have lied about not deleting feed back.  Which when you look at host gator.

Back in September 2008 according to youcanhost.com http://blog.youcanhost.com/host-reviews-exposed/webhostingstuffcom-consumer-reports-for-hosting-or-advertising-for-web-hosting/ They had a 80% approval rating.   Now some how we have to believe that they are never deleted any negative feed back.  After all Hostgator now has a flawless 5 star rating.  Regardless a 100% rating is really hard for me to believe.   In my years of webhosting I would say that atleast 90% of my customers were happy with my service I was providing them.   But finding positive feed back from them posted online was next to impossible.   It was always easier to find negative feed back from people that I, or for that matter no one could please.
Then there is this tidbit of interest at youcanhost.com,

http://blog.youcanhost.com/host-reviews-exposed/webhostingstuffcom-consumer-reports-for-hosting-or-advertising-for-web-hosting/comment-page-1

“admin,

September 8th, 2008 at 10:54 am

Number 2 HostDawgs.com is defiantly new according to WhoIs Info: Creation Date: 24-feb-2008“

This is a company that is not even in business, but yet its listed still in webhostingstuff.com’s data base

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/company/HostDawgscom.html

The only person to have given them a review appear to have an inactive website.

Here is what Webhostingstuff.com says about HostDawgs:

HostDawgs.com Uptime: 0.00%
Site Established: Unknown Traffic Popularity: #3,920 of 10,293 companies

Somehow a site with zero uptime is 3,920 out of 10,293 sites.

Does this mean that webhostingstuff.com is keeping track of close to 7,000 defunct websites? When you goto hostdawgs.com it takes you to GoDaddy’s generic landing page for newly registered domains.

Also keep in mind that HostDawgs.com used to be number 2 on webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list, search engine results are few and far between, and seldom taking me to anything relevant to hostdawgs.co.

However if you go look up GoDaddy.com’s ranking’s at webhostingstuff here is what it says:

Site Established: 2 Mar 1999 (11 years and 99 days ago)Traffic Popularity: #2 of 10,293 companiesThe GoDaddy site was established 11 years and 99 days ago since 2 Mar 1999.

Their website’s popularity is ranked #2 of about 10,293 hosting companies listed here – based on the estimated number of visitors to GoDaddy’s website.

I am a bit confused, JustHost.com was supposed to be number 2, and I don’t see GoDaddy.com on the top 25 at all.

Site Established: UnknownTraffic Popularity: #21 of 10,293 companiesTheir website’s popularity is ranked #21 of about 10,293 hosting companies listed here – based on the estimated number of visitors to Just Host’s website.

It looks like JustHost.com gets to stay on the top 25 based off of what ever number that webhostingstuff.com is not willing to share with its vistors.  But still it does not make sense.  So I figured lets try a few others:

Site Established: 15 Nov 2002 (7 years and 205 days ago)Traffic Popularity: #8 of 10,293 companiesThe BlueHost site was established 7 years and 205 days ago since 15 Nov 2002. Their website’s popularity is ranked #8 of about 10,293 hosting companies listed here – based on the estimated number of visitors to BlueHost’s website.

Another host not in the top 25 ,Bluehost

Site Established: 27 Apr 1998 (12 years and 43 days ago)Traffic Popularity: #11 of 10,293 companies The Network Solutions site was established 12 years and 43 days ago since 27 Apr 1998. Their website’s popularity is ranked #11 of about 10,293 hosting companies listed here – based on the estimated number of visitors to Network Solutions’s website.

Wow, Network solutions is not on the list, but according to the traffic popularity it should be 11.

So what about the one thats listed number 1:

Site Established: 24 Mar 1995 (15 years and 78 days ago)Traffic Popularity: #60 of 10,293 companiesThe iPage site was established 15 years and 78 days ago since 24 Mar 1995. Their website’s popularity is ranked #60 of about 10,293 hosting companies listed here – based on the estimated number of visitors to iPage’s website.

So, in conclusion:  Webhostingstuff.com can not even by their own numbers validate where websites rank in regards to their popularity.  They are just as bad as those companies they claim are not legit.  But just for fun, lets take their actually rankings and stack them against those in the top 25 list.  Bold face lie does not even cut it, this is a web of lies.

Its pretty funny, but there is only one site that has the right position according to its rankings and that is HostGator, and only one other site that should be in the top 25 and thats JustHost.com which should be number 21 not number 2.  All the others are 51 – 3555.

Listing in top 25 – actual ranking – company name

1 – 60 – iPage

2 – 21 – Just Host

3 – 46 – FatCow Web Hosting

4 – 77 – Arvixe Web Solutions

5 – 5 – HostGator

6 – 51 – InMotion Hosting

7 – 92 – MochaHost

8 – 2633 – nativespace

9 – 349 – Interactive Online

10 – 3555 – IoxHost

11 – 298 – Essentials Hosting

12 – 1065 – Greenville Host

13 – 200 – Omnis Network

14 – 2271 – Identity Website Hosting

15 – 59 – Site5 com

16 – 232 – 2GB Hosting

17 – 172 – Green Geeks

18 – 909 – Cloud bg

19 – 74 – iWeb Technologies Inc

20 – 530 – Indichostsnet

21 – 365 – Scala Hosting

22 – 103 – Steadfast Networks

23 – 764 – LFC Hosting

24 – 3382 – Netmar

25 – 1180 – ThePrimeHost

Curious about who would be number 1?  I found out by accident.  I wanted to see where Yahoo ranked, and surprise surprise they were number 1.

Webhostingstuff.com clearly states:

Web Hosting Stuff uses a Quality Scoring method to rank hosting companies featured within each hosting category.

The Quality Score for each web host is calculated using realtime visitor statistics and other quality indicators.

By using quality indicators such as visitor statistics, the system is able to determine which web hosts visitors liked.

To build a fair and honest ranking system, ranking is always performed automatically by the system – free of human interference.

Unlike some dubious “top 10 hosting sites”  that promote web hosts based on affiliate commissions, our fair and honest ranking system helps visitors find the real top web hosting companies.

I wonder what these other quality indicators are, perhaps this link can point us to it:  https://www.webhostingstuff.com/advertise.html

I have not actually seen any advertising on their site, so this is a bit of a curious link.

When Unlimited Space is not the same as Infinite Space

I will never trust hostingsthatsuck.com. Why?  Well they at one time had a glowing review of justhost.com.  Only to change it to they suck, because they had a lot of negative search engine results.  Keep in mind you had to scroll down past the positive review that said “Just Host just sucks, not really” to see a disclaimer that they no longer approved of Just Host and recommend another company, though their Just Host affiliate link and banners remained on the site.    Then they changed it back to not sucking because they (hostingsthatsuck.com) finally figured out that people are more likely to post negative comments then they are positive.  Took them long enough to figure that out.  Considering before that they based their methodology on rather a host sucked or not based on the amount of search engine results for suck with a dot com.  But that’s not so much the part that I have an issue with, regardless of the stupidity of their prior methodology.  I have an issue with the fact they are in bed with the same people they are supposed to have an unbiased opinion of.

Then there is this:

“admin says:December 29, 2008 at 4:07 pm

Mr Abasi, I hope you don’t take the word “unlimited” to mean infinite. Realistically, it just means that you get enough space more than you ever need or it is an unreachable limit. Read their TOS. If are hosting a file/movie/photo sharing, get a dedicated server!The “abusers” make life of decent users like us harder than it should be, when the web hosts put more and more constraints on what we can do on our hosting account.

We predict that the “unlimited” bytes hard-drive will never be invented, but all web hosting will offer unlimited everything in the future – go figure”

It took another response from Abasi to get the admin to admit that the practice of using unlimited space in sales wording was unethical.  Clearly whoever the Admin is, he / she was trying to reinvent the use of the word unlimited.  While unlimited has never meant ‘all that you will ever need’, unlimited is a far catchier draw in then ‘all that you will ever need’.  How do you determine how much resources that a individual will ever need?  A constraint is clearly a limit.

I think the only bigger mess then unlimited hosting is unlimited reseller hosting. Especially when they are reselling webhosting to other customers.  Let me tell you the mess that unlimited space reselling can be, or better yet reselling to other resellers.  One day I had a customer who moved his site from another host, only to find his previous host shut down his unlimited reseller account because he passed the “all you will ever need” quota.   Yes reselling to resellers was allowed.  At the same time he did not bother to answer his email or phone to my company’s calls or his customers.  His customers found me when they did a whois on his new dns to find my company, thinking we had shut their sites down.   We soon shut his account down due the headache it had caused, last time I did the math he cost at least 80 hours of lost man hours between dealing with 47 different individuals that were also reselling.  Clearly his $16.99 a month was not going to cover the cost of man power.  He obviously was not going to deal with his customers despite the multiple emails and phone calls.  Only after shutting his site down did he contact us. Despite pointing his customers to the right company housing their content by doing whois on the dns to their sites, we generated no sales.  I was not really eager to guide these people to my company when they were looking for unlimited space, meaning they had the same disaster to look forward to all over again.  I tried but when I indicated my company did not offer unlimited, and perhaps it would be best to be with a company that has limits as opposed to being shut down without warning.  Their recent downtime did not bring the point home.

Hostingsthatsuck.com does not have those affiliate links and banners on their site for nothing.  For the same reasons that webhostingstuff.com has justhost.com on their number 2 spot.  I also don’t agree with them on all hosts as offering unlimited in the future.  Frankly saying something is unlimited means there is no limits.  If the terms of service starts listing limits on space and its usage then they need to remove the “un” from limited.   When your website is your source of income you want to make sure you don’t push any limits, or have your limits / needs determined by a webhost… Seriously, if your website is your only source of income, why would you ever trust it to an unlimited account that is $2.95 a month?  I suppose you can be cheap and hope that you don’t find out what has been determined to be your needs.  Can you afford days of downtime?

Regardless of the so called unlimited false claim, every host has a limit to how much resources a customer can use.  Bandwidth can be unmetered, but it will always have a cap on how much data you can send per second.  Just as there are limits on how much email you can send out per hour.   I reluctantly am willing to say it, but I had one of those unlimited space webhosting companies.  It was not something I wanted to do, it came from pressure from a business partner who had started a separate operation.  His claim was that it was the future of hosting.  But my thoughts were that Dollar Generals, 99 cent stores, and other stores that focus on the cheap had not put Wal-Mart and Target out of business.  The unlimited market is simply the cheap market, and no serious website should consider such a service.  I consider any one running an unlimited host along the same ethical standards as a payday loan operation.

I got dragged into it when he was drowning in the customer service side. For some reason he thought the level of support and flow of customers would be equal to our other hosting companies where we were charging between $20 – 500 a month.  It was going well, and the customers did come flooding in faster than previous operations. But it had been my experience that those that pay you $5 a month require a lot more hand holding then those that pay you a lot.  This proved especially true for the unlimited company, which is why I got dragged into help sort it out.

Part of my business partners’ problem was he had long been against my policy of approving orders before setting them up. Unlike the companies we co-found, orders would only be created once they were screened, this was done because I managed customer service.  After several fraud orders and charge backs and threats of having his merchant account closed down he quickly come screaming to me to fix it.  That and his authorization charges were to the point of eating 90% of his income.  I been long screening for a variety of reasons, though charge backs are what started me on screening.  Also the credit card industry is not a friend to the businesses that use their merchant services, even worse if you sell a service like webhosting.  If you have any doubt of this you have not had a charge back.  Credit card companies that offer buyer protection are taking the money straight from the business, in this case my business, often without warning.   So you get hit from both the guy committing fraud and your merchant provider.  If you’re luckily you have a merchant that does not charge a charge back fee for a third level of pain (it really does pay to read the fine print on those contracts).  This happens regardless if the claim is valid or not.  Rarely have I been able to win counter claims on charge back claims.  So the best way of preventing is to screen every order.

Then the other side of this is a webhost is a hosting company is not going to host every site, even if their intention is not to do a charge back.  But screening allowed prevention of those that might violate the terms of service.  In my case it was warez, spam, phishing, pornography, hate sites…. (There are so many websites that I wish I had never seen in my 11 years).   A unique problem this company had was that every order with a ‘mail’ in their name domain was pretty much signing up to spam.  Not something I had encountered with the other hosting companies I had owned.

But the true damage control came in screening existing accounts.  When accounts reached 1 gig we started looking for terms of service violations.  I would say 20% entered this category at 1 gig.   Like those that decided to back up their desktop, back up of their site, any site that was not was not reachable through navigation of their home page, file sharing, etc., etc., etc..   Keep in mind most websites rarely use more than a 100 Megs.  When they started reaching 50 gigs it was pretty much a 100% kill rate.  Keep in mind part of our terms of service was no reselling, and that all domains must belong to the account holder.

Every account has a magic number with every company for what amounts to a profit threshold.     If the account passes by those unpublished limits it surpasses the profit margin the account.  Clearly any company that likes money will have such an account in it for the chopping block to ensure they do not running in the negative on income.  Otherwise the company becomes a charity.  Equipment, advertising, taxes, merchant fees, staff, affiliate payments, web design, utilities,  and so much more expenditures are part of making sure a webhosting company runs properly and profitable.

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