I'm having a very nasty experience with Hostwinds.com, and I want to share it with you all. Their host manager, Peter, came to me when he heard I was looking for a new Host. He offered me a sensible deal. After awhile, I learned the server he gave me wasn't suitable for me. He persuaded me to upgrade to a higher server. Some time later, I learned the server he gave is again not suitable for me, and Peter become more and more hostile towards me. When I decided enough is enough, and asked to cancel my deal and a refund, Peter refused and instead promised that if I upgrade again, my problems with the server will be solved. Reluctantly, I agreed, but made sure to add to our agreement a clause for a 12 months refund, if I find the server unsuitable anymore. This is the transcript: (3:39:42 AM) Me: i might settle for 7/7/12 but the 12 months refund agreement still stands (3:40:13 AM) Hostwinds: only if we fail to provide you with great service (3:40:22 AM) Hostwinds: your not getting a refund because you find a better deal (3:43:06 AM) Me: ok, but write down everything that we agreed to (3:43:17 AM) Me: in the client area or whereever (3:43:56 AM) Hostwinds: I am Now, a time has passed, and my server has become dysfunctional. I asked Peter for a fix, but instead of helping, he demanded a ransom payment of $100 for an OS reload, and adding additional costs to every future host action. After arguing with him about it, he finally accepted to doing the OS reload, but then came up with a story that a hacker used a script that wiped my server, and sent "MAGNETIC WAVES" to destroy the CPU & RAM. Even his support staff know this is ********. At that point, I demanded a refund, as it seemed like he was just wasting my time in purpose, and keeping my server down. He begged to give him more a bit more time, and I waited almost 6 days till he gave me a new server. When trying to access this new server, the SSH was broken, and couldn't even work with it. I had enough of his business behavior, and the conducts of his Hosting company, and requested a pro-rated refund per our agreement. He waived me off and wrote that he will not honor our agreement, and will not provide me with any refund. The last we spoke he closed my hosting account and claims that by his ToS asking for a refund is threatening. So to give you all heads up, if you are not looking for a hosting provider that will behave in a degrading, dishonorably, and censorious manner towards it's paying clients, stay as far away from this awful host!
Peter is the same guy who sent me this message: HWadmin says: please note all future reboots will cost $25 HWadmin says: per reboot HWadmin says: if you argue with us once single time HWadmin says: even a ****ing peep about this HWadmin says: I will be considering it abuse towards hostwinds HWadmin says: and I will end our contract as outlined in our TOS HWadmin says: there will be no refund (note that Peter himself acknowledged the refund agreement plenty of times in our chats) Not to mention further proof how disrespectful and degrading he is to his paying costumers.
There's always 2 sides to a story, but if that's an accurate posting of the conversation then it's a disgraceful way to behave. Some of our customers do drive us up the wall occasionally (but we love them dearly!), and we can get a little annoyed with them, but we're never impolite like that and we just get on with it and deal with the problem. However...there always has to be one.....surely having the wrong specification of server isn't your hosts fault? It's not up to them to tell you what you need for your site - their liability isurance wouldn't let them. They can guide, maybe even give an opinion, but the decision has to be down to you and if you get it wrong then all they can do is assist you upgrade to a more suitable system. If we have an customer with an unmanaged dedicated server then OS re-installs are charged for because it takes support time (managed servers and VPS are a different issue). Charging for a re-boot is a bit much, but then again, we use APC remote re-boot systems so the server owner can do it themselves. Love the "Magnetic Waves". I'll have to write that one down for the next support meeting. Maybe we should adopt if for the times when we're struggling to find an answer and we can't figure out what has gone wrong.
We would never treat a client like this. I think WHT deserves to hear the full story. Tom came to us around a year ago I would say. He asked for a VPS which we provided. Tom's VPS kept crashing because it was running out of RAM (OpenVZ VPS). We went over the upgrade options with Tom, and he decided to go with a dedicated server. This dedicated server has the following specifications 8Gb RAM 2x Quad Core Xeon 1.86 Ghz 2x 1 TB Hard Drives Tom got on this server and I thought all of our problems (him opening a chat every day to disrespect and degrade us because his server was slow when he was running it at 100% RAM) were finally over. Tom has this server for about 1 month and then the problems begin. Tom opens a live chat to let us know that his server was "locked up" We are unable to SSH into the box, and upon attaching a KVM to the machine, we find that the kernel has crashed because the server ran out of memory and SWAP space. We the placed a limit on the memory usage for the OS of the server to 8Gb. In order to ensure system stability, Tom removes this limit and again a few days later he tells us his server is locking up. He demands that we upgrade his server for FREE because we promised him a working server. We obviously were not going to give into his demands for free upgrades, when the server was working just fine, he was simply overloading it. A few weeks go by with Tom popping into chat on a more and more frequent basis to have us reboot his server. We continue to do this for him. Then one day Tom opens up a live chat and says we need to reload his Operating System. I know many providers can do this for free through automated panels, we however do not have such luxuries. We must do all OS reloads through a KVM manually. It takes 1-2 hours for our admins to reload an OS. This is mainly caused by the poor quality of the KVM's that we have access to. We told Tom that it would cost $25 to have his OS reloaded. Tom argued with me for probably an hour on chat before finally going away, saying that he would pay someone else to do the work, and that if he had to pay, at least he wouldn't have to pay us. The next day Tom opens a live chat saying his server is not accessable, knowing the routine with Tom we have the server rebooted. The server never came up, so we had a KVM hooked up to the server. The server's hard drives had been formatted. We notify Tom that he is still going to have to pay for the OS reload, since this was clearly deliberately done, and even if it wasn't he was still responsible for the security of his own server. Tom throws a temper tantrum, and threatens myself and my staff. He goes on about how he is going to get lawyer and sue us, and trash We reload Tom's OS for free. We delivered the server 100% working to Tom. Tom then attempts to uninstall cPanel (which we had installed as that was how his server was originally provisioned), When Tom uninstalled cPanel he must have messed with some critical OS files (WHICH IS WHY cPanel says to not uninstall it, just reload the OS). We were working on reloading his OS AGAIN when Tom comes in and demands a refund for his server. Per our TOS, his server is non refundable (http://www.hostwinds.com/TOS.html), and given the hours we have put into Tom's account it is also non negotiable (we usually work with client's if they have a legitimate concern, or problem). We have lost thousands of Dollars on Tom as a client. I am now seeing that he is bashing us on every forum he can find. So this is also costing us time and money. We have thousands of happy clients, and I think the vast majority of which are 100% happy with our service. It's really hard as a provider, one bad egg can do so much damage. We work hard every day to provide the best service possible, and really take an interest in personal customer service and support. I want to invite Tom to give us a call 918 960 0191 (ask for Peter), maybe we can work something out, but as things stand currently we have no choice but to stick to our TOS. -Peter Holden Hostwinds.com
Not sure why you would bother, to be honest. Some clients are better off...anywhere else! Nice hearing both sides of the story.
First, it was you who approached me by IM, and peddled me to move to your server. Not that it matters much, but it seems like you have an idea that you did me a favor that I agreed to sign in on your new host. Note that I don't have much technical know how, that's why I come to the host support, and also consult with a private server manager from time to time. I have no clue what OS memeory lock even means, or how to "unlimit" it as you blame me. I've had consultation with a few 7-8 years experienced host managers, to see what I can do to improve the server, they saw that every single fault in my server came from the technical side of the setup. Peter himself would not offer any significant help, besides telling me to pay him MORE money, for upgrades. That is why I was stuck in the routine of Finding Out My Server Crashed for 12 Hours > Contact Support For Reboot > Wait 4 more hours for Reboot I wasn't happy about it, but Peter made it clear that I'm stuck this way. I'm surprised that as a host manager, Peter allows himself to blame the client at every single fault, instead of actually offering any help, without adding hidden fees. You have told me it was $100. And this was after you made me wait 8 hours, saying the KVM was already connected. Funny enough, after I posted the same thread on BHW, and just before you had my account banned and thread deleted (you are their host afterall), I had more than a half dozen people personally messaging me telling me they experienced the exact same situation with you. And many more followed with their complaints about your service. All I'm saying is, you did not live up to your word in providing me with a great service and a functional server, and as per our written agreement, I expect to get a pro-rated refund. which comes out to a whooping $1376.71.
Well, it seems like there ARE 2 sides to the story. For someone with no technical knowledge to take on an unmanaged dedicated server or VPS is trouble waiting to happen. It's not up to the host to support the server once it has been delivered, except to replace damaged hardware. Support time, OS reloads, and even advice come at a cost for unmanaged customers. My advice to TrinityZey is not to go for an unmanaged solution again unless they have someone else set-up to manage the server for them. Running a server in a local set-up, and running a locked-down server for internet use are 2 completely different beasts. Without some decent sys admin experience you will inevitably come accross problems that you don't know how to fix, and you could easily mess-up what was a stable working platform. It's a tough lesson to learn but the money saved going unmanaged - when you don't have the experience - is just not worth it. Go managed and get the experience, then maybe think about trying an unmanaged VPS that isn't critical to get more experience.
That's besides the point, RobBrown. I didn't mind paying experienced host managers to take care of my server from time to time. But when the server malfunctions to a point that only the actual host company I rent the server from can do anything about it, I expect that as a paying client, they'll be more willing to support me, instead of keep adding additional fees that I didn't sign up to. Not to mention that adding a redundant clause to charge $50 extra for each server restart, just to spite the paying clients, is a manner that no other company would do the same.
TrinityZey, you still don't seem to understand what an unmanaged server is and what it entails. RonBrown summed it up nicely. An unmanaged provider will generally deliver a server partitioned and with your choice of operating system, and after that, they will do nothing with your server aside from fixing broken hardware, and solving network issues. That's it! The server was not broken, it doesn't sound like it was malfunctioning at all. You were using up all your available RAM, and that is not something an unmanaged provider is going to help you with. $50 to reload your OS (they say $25) is perfectly reasonable if there is no automated means for you to do it yourself. If they are charging $50 to reboot your sever, then that's unreasonable. But I think you might be confusing rebooting with reloading the OS. Rebooting would be power cycling the server.
You probably missed it, WSWD, but the whole problem is that the server was broken. From "Magnetic Waves" no less! $50 was for a single server restart. $100 was for an OS reboot. I have the invoice Hostwinds sent me without my agreement for a $100 OS reload. The fact is, I pre-paid Hostwinds for almost a year from now, and they decided mid-way of my contract to add additional fees to it without my consent. I would have never signed up to their hosting if I knew upfront that they will add hidden fees to my service. Hostwinds: "please note that as of 12/16/2011, remote reboot requests are now $50 per request this is only on a per client basis based on the number of requests we receive in the past, your account is now subject to this pricing tier for remote reboots. Hostwinds own TOS: "The amount Customer pays for hosting will never increase from the date of purchase." But as you read, I didn't ask for a refund because of server management issues. I asked for a refund because my server was broken, and Hostwinds didnt fix it or replaced it with a functional alternative in a timely manner, prolonging my sites down time. I had every right to ask for a refund, under the written agreement I made with Peter, the host manager, and he refuses to honor it.
I didn't miss it. I heard your claims that the server was broken. What was wrong with it? They claim you were using 100% of your RAM and running out of memory. What say you to that? Is that not the case? I read somewhere (either here or WHT) that your usage is low on your new server. If they really are charging that much for a reboot, shame on them. At the end of the day, in a capitalist society, they can charge whatever they want. They'll find themselves out of business, but they can charge whatever they want. Before they added these "hidden fees", what were the fees in the contract you agreed to? Do you have in writing somewhere what the previous fees were?
I belive the op is totally misunderstanding. So what is your new server that you have? What type of software were you running on your server? sounds like he had a runaway process. Also i bet there is a page on there website that has all there fees on it.
The server was running my websites, which includes your basic centos and cpanel installation, that was provided by the host. I have a similar setup on my new host, and not only my sites now work %1000 better, my new host's support and pricing is outstanding. Far superior to the dreck service Hostwinds provided. Feel free to run through hostwinds site. There are no mention of any additional fees like server restart on it. And neither was I made aware of any additional costs by the host provider when signing up. Only thing you'll find on hostwinds site is disinformation and falsification. Hostwinds is an abominable hosting provider, and should be avoided if ever anyone is looking for a good and trustworthy provider.
There's always 25 sides to every story, but those chat transcriptions (if accurate) tell me all I need to know.