Do you always get what you pay for?
Normally I don’t trash on other companies in a public forum, even when the service is poor, but some times the service is so poor that you just need to make your voice heard. In my case, I had several clients sign up a few years ago for web hosting with a company originally called DR2.NET. They had excellent service and great prices. Over time though, they got bought out. Then, that company got bought out. After four buyouts (yes 4!) they are now called WebHostPlus (www.webhostplus.com). Just before that, they were NetBunch (www.netbunch.com).
The reason that I specifically mention them is that by the time they became Netbunch, their service was so poor that it would literally take a month to get a secure certificate installed (this is once we already had the certificate issued!). Now that thay have been bought out by WebhostPlus, it has taken over two months (yes 2 MONTHS) to get a domain name transferred… and it still isn’t done!
Want to get a refund when you move from their service? They will promise to do so but neither I nor any or my clients have yet to see a dime.
You can call or submit tickets. Tickets generally take over a week (or more, some still haven’t gotten responses) to get any kind of response. The response you get is that the problem has been forwarded on to a different department never to be heard from again. It is actually against company policy for them to hand out contact information for those other departments. At one point, my request for the domain transfer was forwarded on to the owner of the company. That was over a week ago… Still no word.
Calls result in the same response “we will forward it on to the appropriate department”.
All these issues with my own sites and with my clients sites has resulted in lower customer satisfaction. As such, this was the push that conviced us to start offering hosting ourselves. It was one of the best choices we made all year. What makes the choice so great is not so much the new money that comes in (we actually gave discounts and such to make up for issues with past service through WebHostPlus) but in time savings. Now, if something is wrong, we simply fix it. No more waiting a week to install a secure certificate, no more spending 20 hours over 2 months calling and submitting tickets just to get a domain name transfered. We can have a certificate issued and installed in as little as 30 minutes! We can now even offer certificates for half (thawte) or a third (verisign) of the price of other companies. We can have your site up and running (domain name an all) in as little as 30 minutes.
Our clients are happier due to one point of contact, one bill, and MUCH better service. We are happier due to the ability to just get the job done. It amazes me that there are companies out there who don’t seem to want to do what they are in business for. As in other industries, web hosting companies live and die by their reputation for service and reliability. My guess is that unless things change drastically, WebhostPlus would be a bad place to turn in a resume if you are looking for job security.
Am I bitter? Not really. It has been a good business move to offer hosting services to our clients and WebHostPlus helped push us in that direction. What I don’t want is forr others to get burned the way we were. There are so many good hosting services out there. Spread the word, write your own reviews, let people know what these companies are really like before they hand over their hard earned cash. Don’t get caught giving money to these companies like WebHostPlus that make promises but don’t deliver. Getting what you pay for is an issue we face in any industry and it is the reason that Computer Magic is growing. When people want good service from people who can get the job done for a resonable price, they know where to turn.
Ray Pulsipher
Owner
Computer Magic And Software Design
