Had a hosting package with Heart Internet UK via a reseller for 3 years and recently the performance has dropped significantly. Within the last year Heart Internet had disabled the MSQL database twice and crashed the site with no warning and without notification. Only when we raised a ticket did they report that an unexplained, un-demonstrated and unproven spike in the traffic resulting in the need for Heart Internet to disable the database. If we did not spot it, it could have been down for weeks! Here is the transcript of the live chart with Heart Internet customer services staff.... Please wait. A member of the sales team will be with you shortly. One moment please... Nick Brown says: Hello algarveprop.com. My name is Nick Brown how can I help you? algarveprop.com says: I am a client Via one of your resellers Nick Brown says: OK Nick Brown says: How can we help? algarveprop.com says: algarveprop.com is hosted by you, and you have disabled the msql database 24 hours ago, with no notification Nick Brown says: (( Normally we would email the reseller about this)), but I can't comment on what has happened as I haven't been party to the reasons why algarveprop.com says: the site is still down, you claim a spike in traffic, there is no evidence, we are not mailing , have made no changes and are getting no mysterious traffic algarveprop.com says: you did not, and you did not respond to the ticket lodged by them yesterday afternoon, claiming 'it was lost'!!!! algarveprop.com says: Personally I have wasted 4 hours of my time and the site/client is short by well over 300 site visitors and I want no know now what you are going to do about it algarveprop.com says: now Nick Brown says: you will need to talk to the reseller about this. Nick Brown says: as we can only discuss account details with them algarveprop.com says: I don't want to discuss account details. I want the site live, If they have not paid, you we will settle, the fact you are blocking out business has nothing to do with the account algarveprop.com says: This is also the second time you have done this with no warning or explanation and I would like to stress here and now that I think it is totally unacceptable. I operate over 100 live domains through 4 hosting accounts, and with United Hosting and Midphase has never experienced this level of disruption Nick Brown says: There is most likely to be a reason why the block has been put in place. We cannot advise on this over the livechat system, you will need to talk to the reseller who your account is with. algarveprop.com says: You claim a spike, which is impossible and not a result of any actions by us. If the server is under attach, your firewall should have the ability to neutralise via an IP block. Disablement of the MSQL BD is totally unnecessary Nick Brown says: Please contact the reseller for further action on this, as we cannot assist further on this chat system. ..................................................................... Does anybody else have bad experience with Heart Internet recently? Can recommend United Hosting in the UK and Midphase Chicago hosting platforms. Both offer good prices, unrivalled performance and excellent support.
I can understand your frustration, but this really has nothing to do with Heart Internet. Your hosting package is with the reseller, not Heart Internet, so Heart Internet have no relationship with you. If you are a client of a reseller, then you need to speak to your reseller. There may be reasons for these things happening e.g. another client on the same reseller account is causing issues, and you are getting caught in the fallout, but they can't tell you what the reasons are (Data Protection, Privacy etc) and they can't help you directly. You have no direct relationship with Heart Internet and they have no duty of care to you or any need to speak to you - harsh though that is. The salesperson was polite enough, and I think if you read between the lines there is some sort of issue with the reseller account (my speculation only). I don't understand why you are here trashing Heart Internet. If you want to trash anyone, blame your reseller, as they are the root of the problem. Until your reseller sorts things out, you don't know if the problems you are experiencing are Heart Internets fault or your resellers, and Heart don't have to prove anything to you directly as you are not their customer.
Hi Ron. You speculated wrongly. The reseller has just received a notification from Heart Internet (27 hours after they disabled the site) that they want us to upgrade to a dedicated server for £1000 per year, as the site is 'a victim of it's own success' despite our bandwidth use being less than 10,000mb per month and 500 mb diskspace not being unreasonable on an unlimited hosting account. If fact they are holding us to ransom as they refuse to enable the MSQL DB without our agreement. What should I do, any ideas? As I am very reluctant to commit for a further contract with this supplier given the service level...
Oh well, I never claimed I was omnipotent, although it does seem there was a problem with the account. If that's the way Heart Internet conduct their business, then I would be looking for another host. It's not the suspension that worries me as it could be within their rights, although any decent provider would try to do their best first before going to that length, even if it meant a temporary transfer to another server while the issue is resolved. Don't read a lot into the bandwidth. 10GB is not a lot, but we have customers with server clusters that don't transfer much data when measured, but they deal with hundreds of thousands of visitors a day and millions of pounds in transactions and they push the servers hard consuming a lot of server resources. Unless they are owed money, holding files to ransom is very poor practice and is putting them into a difficult position legally. The files don't belong to them and they have no right to hold onto them. They (maybe) don't have any liability to provide live systems, but they should return the database either as a backup or a detachment. You're in the unfortunate position of not being party to the agreement and only knowing what you are told by other people. My advice would be do find a good hosting company who is trustworthy and professional and host with them directly. As you probably know, the majority of "hosting companies" are resellers. There's nothing wrong with that, and many provide excellent support and service, but in situations like this, where your reseller and the host are having a disagreement, you are the victim without any real power. If what you say about Heart refusing to release files is correct, then you would be unwise to host with them directly, but I only say that on the basis of what you have been told which probably isn't the whole story. Only you can make that decision.
We knew from the outset we were with a reseller and fortunately that reseller is a good friend. This is a small but well optimised Real Estate site with less than 500 uniques per day, a few images all resized and optimised for web, less than 5% of the reseller limits I have set on another United Hosting package on which we have no issues at all. I appreciate you advice. Thanks.
Its a problem when small businesses grow, they buy alot of capacity, thinking they will sell more. then it doesn't sell, they layoff staffs, take things off, then the customer get frustrated... A victim of their own success.................I ordered a webhosting from a company online, paid, no respond... I then ordered another one, the other one say they ran out of ips....... basically......they got customers, they did not have enough supply......a victim of their own growth. happens all the time...........