ReadyHosting reviews

Worst tech service ever!

For over 5 years I have been trying to get the double billing, wrong domain names, deletion of domains and other problems worked out. Hours on the phone with a tech person that would assure me they had everything straightened out. They seemed to always make it worse.
I confronted them on double billing and they finally closed one account. After telling them to make sure that they didn't delete the account with my 1 domain name in it, they did exactly that. Now I don't have a website and I'm paying for a resellers account. Plan on cancelling today and just starting over with someone else.

Biggest Pro: Was reliable for years
Biggest Con: Service has gotten terrible

ReadyHosting is the worst

I spent over 5 hours with Readyhosting in an attempt to get my domain transferred to another registrar. They kept saying everything was setup correctly for the transfer. They would send the authorization code, I would try it with the new register, and would get the same message: domain expired. Did this for hours over two day.
Finally Readyhosting said I would have to pay for an additional year for the domain. I paid. The expiration was updated, I got another auth code. Now when I try to transfer, I get the message: authorization code invalid.
On top of all this, every time they had me log into my account, I had to reset the password.
I had this same issue with another account over a year ago. Does not seem they have gotten any better in that time.

Service downhill and getting worse

I continually have Windows IIS issues. My domains keep going to the IIS page. When I go to the domain pointer page i cringe because if I change 1, it changes all my domains and resets them I have to email tech support, it takes a few days for them to respond. They have to reset the windows servers. I was told today that their normal tech support no longer will chat with you about windows servers. That they can only talk about non windows issues.

Poorly integrated services, Poor customer service

RH (readyhosting) is a "semi-self serve" type service. You need to know a lot about how web services work and how to get them to work appropriately together, and the nuances of how RH linked the services together on the backside. You will receive little to no help from RH (either through phone support or through logical self describing admin processes).

RH needs to decide if its a service for IT departments trying to outsource on the cheap, or if its a one-stop integrated provider for individuals and businesses that don't have specialist staff. It's current approach is somewhere in the middle, and results in the worst of both worlds.

Most admin actually redirects you to separate admin pages per each underlying service, which means that you must understand what changes are needed on each separate tool to achieve the desired integrated effect, and you must understand the nuances of how RH implemented the services.

Over the years, I've had multiple extended downtimes on my services - always because of some problem that you would expect RH to have handled or avoided.

For example, most recently I transferred Domain registration to them, using their forms. But when they transferred the registration, they did not update the old registration information (isn't that what 'registration' is?) which included an outdated contact email. The process did not display the old data, nor allow ME to input updated info, nor did it warn that they would not be updating using my current RH account info, nor did it explain the validation process or warn that I must re-validate all info through the OLD registrar first. As a result my domain was locked because Domain.com sent a confirmation of transfer to the old email. RH 's reg service does not actually check that the DNS is successfully activated (!) and therefore did not attempt to warn me of an error at Domain.com - which of course I can't know, since I have to go through my current registrar - RH!

Otherwise the full downtimes are generally due to RH modifying and breaking a service, and then not being proactive about contacting me (nor do they offer a central admin alerts system where I could setup monitoring with text/email/phone messaging). Additionally, the email service is just flaky. I've had multiple issues with it being unavailable for short periods with no explanation, emails being lost, parameters I set being lost or modified, and so on.

Technical Support the absolute WORST!

This company have been going downhill over the years. They used to have great support, but know I will have unresolved issues for WEEKS!. I will send a request asking for an update and it gets ignored. Currently we have a security issue with our webmail that has been going on for 10 days. No one there seems to know how to fix it.

I can not and would not recommend this company to my worst enemy.

Biggest Pro: Inexpensive
Biggest Con: Very Poor Techincal Suport

Reliability seems to be going further and further downhill

Been with ReadyHosting over 10 years. Haven't had too many problems except for servers going down. This seems to be happening more and more often. My website becomes unavailable and I have to contact support who are almost useless. They seem to only be able to create a ticket which must be looked at by someone else to try to correct the problem which can take up to 48 hours later. Can no longer recommend this site and will be looking to move to a new hosting site if improvement isn't made soon.

Biggest Pro: Lately - can't think of any
Biggest Con: Uptime - when business depends on access to website this is a big con.....

Caution

I wrote a review a few months ago about their change in policies and failure to notify customers or give them a chance to cancel. Once I started canceling my accounts, they tried to charge me cancellation fees, in other words, no refunds for the unused months. I stated that I did not sign up for these accounts under their new terms, nor was it legal for them to force me into new terms of service with proper notification and the choice to accept or decline the new terms.

They checked with their attorney and refunded me for the unused portion under the original terms of service. However, they held up the cancellations long enough to charge me for an additional month. The new owners have proven to be very dishonest people and I never plan to do business with them again.

Biggest Pro: Were once great
Biggest Con: Now, everything about them is horrible from technical support to honesty

Was good at one time

Have been here many years but really looking to leave now. Site is starting to feel dated compared to other companies, and service has been going downhill. Had 2 fumbled new domain setups where the site was not registered instantly and lost one domain name to a scalper. Reseller program not bad with sites for $45/yr, but has an annual fee to be in the rebrandable program.

Biggest Pro: good speed, decent support
Biggest Con: reliability, automatic processes

ReadyHosting worsens with every year

I've used ReadyHosting for 6 domains for many years. Each year I keep saying that I need to run away from them, but it's just such a hastle to move that I have not . . . until now. They have finally become so bad that I am now moving everything away from them. Having already switched a few of my domains, I now have absolute confirmation that ReadyHosting is horrible because I now work with two other hosters who are actually responsive and competent.

ReadyHosting's "tech support" people are all outsourced and not only don't know much, they aren't empowered to tell you anything. Their own "tech support" people have to submit a ticket to be looked at by someone knowledgeable, and that often takes 24-48 hours. Inevitably that second person only gets half the story, which in turn causes another full 24-48 hours of delay. If you ask to speak to the second person who in theory actually might be able to help, you're told they are not allowed to connect you with that person. Instead, "tech support" will make another note. Eventually you find out that "tech support" actually just wanted to get you off the phone, so they didn't even escalate your ticket or add any notes. They lie to you to get off the phone, and then did absolutely nothing. If this only happened once, I might think it was just one bad employee. However, it has happened more than once. I think their offshore "tech support" people hate their jobs and just don't care.

In case the customer support isn't actually the worst of any hosting provider, the webmail client is absolutely horrible and they must overload the mail servers because it usually takes 30 seconds before it times out and forces you to refresh the browser to actually show a page of email.