I opened my first hosting account in 1994, so I do know what I'm talking about.
This company of approximately 10 employees (their CS told me) is incredibly unknowing, rude, etc.
I was told by their CS today (when I could finally get through to a real live person, and after an entire night of no ticket response, online CS chat, and their phones going to voicemail, regardless of the department) that a 24 hour response to a critical support ticket is the industry standard. When I asked about the lack of support availability, the coding errors on their website, and the response time, the answer was 'come on, what do you expect for the price you're paying'.
Well, 247-host, I expect to get what is advertised that I'm paying for, nothing more, nothing less.
I checked into signing up for these guys, and went to put in the coupon code clearly advertised on their website. It didn't work. I called them, and spoke to a woman who said she'd check with the 'tech' in the 'data center'. I could hear her cover up the phone and start talking to someone, which really made me wonder if she and 'tech support' were actually in the same room! I suppose she realized then that I could hear her because I heard a 'click' and then got elevator music. Five minutes later she came back on and said the tech had fixed one link and was working on the others, and that I should try it again. I did, still no worky.
Eventually we got it to accept a code, and I asked her how long from payment received to account activation. What a joke. See paragraph 2 of the email I sent them (below). After signing (eventually) I waited for activation. It didn't happen. I signed into one of their site sections and got around to the status page (if you've been around servers long enough you get to know the 'default' location of certain things). Up to 3:00 a.m. Pacific time, 6.5 hours after PayPal payment received, my account creation status was still saying 'Pending'. Also, during this time I received automated support ticket receipts, saying that my ticket had been received, then that someone was looking at it, etc. (auto-generated when someone accesses the support ticket system) This directly contradicts what their support told me in their response email this morning, and I quote: "Your account was activated within a few minutes of your sign up however the email is bouncing back hence you did not get the login info..."
RIGHT! The support ticket system can email me using my account info, and the same servers the account system uses, yet the email with my account information 'bounced' (meaning my server rejected it). I checked my email server, no problems with it. the 247-host rep simply straight out lied to me. NOT COOL.
So, here's the email I sent to them at 2:07 a.m. Pacific Time, January 23, 2011:
"Hello,
Please forward this email to the company directors, who can open a dialogue on the following issues with me if they wish.
I have been with my current host for 6 years. I have to move due to data security issues. I signed up for an account with 247-host.com this evening after talking to your staff, at around 8:30 PT. This was of course after it took half an hour or so to get the promo link fixed on the signup page. I also require information about where the location of the data centers are, and what sort of physical access security there is, as I host physician websites which contain patient data. According to BC law I have to ensure this data is secured by being on Canadian soil, and also by having restricted physical access, the minimum standard of which is keycards. The woman I talked to didn’t know the answers to some of my questions, and told me that for some of the other questions (like what kind of physical access restrictions there are) they wouldn’t tell me for security purposes. This didn’t bother me too much because maybe a customer service rep isn’t knowledgeable about security protocols.
The rep told me that if I purchased with a credit card my account would be set up the following day due to fraud checks. I mentioned that I needed an account up and running immediately. She told me that if I paid by PayPal the account would be set up right away, so that’s what I did. However, 5+ hours later, it’s now almost 2:00 a.m. here, I still don’t have an account set up. I have tried to call all three extensions (Sales, Tech, and Billing) and all of a sudden no one is answering. So much for 24/7 support, as the online chat was also showing ‘offline’. I tried to send in a support ticket, which apparently went in three times according to the emails I have. Of course, my email is the only way I have of tracking the ticket, as I can’t log into the ticket site. I don’t have permission. Why would I not have permission to log into a ticket system that I had already created a ticket on???
In short, I have had to scramble around at midnight to find a decent web host that could have me up and running immediately, which I did find. CanadaResellerHosting staff was available at 4:00 a.m. ET, was extremely knowledgeable about their systems and sold me a plan that fit my needs. On top of that I was logging onto my new server exactly ELEVEN MINUTES after placing the order. 247-host.com just lost my business.
Please refund my PayPal account the amount shown below. I would also say to delete my account, but that point is moot because it STILL hasn’t been created yet (as of 2:07 a.m. PT, January 23rd).
Regards,
Brian S..."
My PayPal payment was refunded at 6:14 a.m.
I didn't know this because I received no notification from them, so I called them to confirm they'd received my email and inquire as to the status. (That's the convo that got the 'what do you expect for the price you're paying' comment.) This Customer Mis-Service rep says to me, "Maybe you should check your PayPal account before you start ****ing at people."
Are they seriously a company in the SERVICE industry???????
Convo (btw, I have most of this stuff recorded, my system does it automatically. You know, just in case 247-host wants to challenge me on this.):
Me: "Whatever. Is there an address I can write to so I can make a complaint?"
CS: "No, you're not one of our clients so we don't care what you think."
Me: "Excuse me? I thought maybe the company would like to be aware of the issues so they can fix them."
CS: "We have thousands of customers, no one cares about your problems." (sic)
Me: "Well, maybe they will care if I have to go post on review sites or the BBB so no one else gets this kind of treatment."
CS: "No, we don't. You got your refund, what else do you want?"
Me: "Look, at this point it's not about the money, it's about the service, the false advertising on support and stuff" (This triggered his comment about how 24 hours on a ticket is the 'industry standard'.
There was more, but you can get the idea of how much these guys care about clients.
And hey, I hope 247-host staff read this. Deal with the issues guys, get it together or get out of what is a very competitive business sector. Comment if you like, prove that I'm mistaken and I'll gladly retract what I've said here. Represent yourselves factually, you'll be in existence longer.
To the reader looking for a host, stay away from this one unless/until they fix their problems and start getting consistent good consumer rating reviews.
Thanks.
Biggest Pro: Can't think of any, really. Well, they did refund, but it was PayPal so if they didn't I'd just reverse it anyway.
Biggest Con: Seriously??? Everything!!!
This person does NOT recommend 247-Host.
This person recommends 247-Host.
