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Should Web Hosts be accountable?

Is a class action lawsuit in the cards for Webhost Plus Inc.?

I have never been one to jump on someone like a predator but let me say this.

On Apr.15th our website, along with maybe a thousand others was transferred to new ownership with a company calling itself "Web Host Plus".

We first learned of this about Mar 16 when we received an email saying that the old company 1plan host (this is who we have been hosted with for 4years or more) was going to be upgrading their servers and that they would be migrating our accounts to the new servers, and that this would be relatively seamless. At that time they requested we back up out websites just in case.

Around April 1st we received another email saying the migration was taking longer than expected so we could go ahead and do whatever updates we needed while they were working on the issue and that they expected the whole migration to be completed by April 15th.

Here is were, in my opinion the deception comes in...

On April 13th we received another Email saying that the company had been acquired by a new management/ownership team, Webhost Plus, Inc. Web Host Plus.

Hmmm they seemed to have failed to mention this acquisition in all previous emails. Personally, I smell a smoke screen and it is my opinion that they deliberately concealed the acquisition in an attempt to protect the buyout and prevent customers from deciding to leave in light of the change in ownership.

BUT WAIT, it gets better, NOT!

On April 15th the so called migration is supposed to be complete, we get up on the 15th of April to discover that indeed that new servers are online now and our websites, mine and my clients whom I had recommended to 1plan (not Webhost Plus Inc) over the years, were copies of March 16th. This, as we were told by 1plan was to be expected. Nothing to do but upload the backups we had made on April 14th, right?

Wrong!

Front Page was not working so we couldn't do a proper upgrade of some of the custom email pages and stuff, PhP was down and so those pages were useless also, some of which were acting as home pages. Email was down and Webhost Plus was actually suggesting, on there migration tutorials, that we recreate our email accounts

(WHAT ABOUT OUR CURRENT EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE??)

That would be just the beginning of our woes.

Over the last 5 days we have had all kinds of troubles, but worse of them all is that there are vital pieces of email that either are not getting through or are being held up in the system somewhere. One of my clients, that does millions in business with the orient called and alerted me to this. Their TIME SENSITIVE emails were not reaching them. I cross referenced this to the fact our own security systems, which email reports to us throughout the day had been coming in spurts rather than spaced throughout the day.

When all this went wrong Webhost Plus was posting updates of there progress on their website every couple hours in, what I feel was an attempt to do crowd control.

However in the past 5 days things are still pretty much a mess and all my attempts to communicate with Tech Support, or anyone else at Webhost Plus have failed.

At one point on the 18th I got through to tech support over a chat line but even that was futile.

At the top of the next column is the transcript of that chat conversation. I spent roughly 25 minutes in that chat room only to finally get cut off without any type of reasonable answer to my question.

 

 

 

* You are now speaking with Carl *****, 1PlanHost. **
Carl ***** : Hello
Manta : hi, I am IT Admin for Heathbecomesyou our login was on a link
and the password is not working
Manta : 0021003727 acc#
Manta : should have been ***********
Manta : hello??
Manta : ??
Manta : Carl, Are you still here?
Carl ***** : ok you just need helm password yes?
Manta : yes
Manta : need to reset email for that account
Carl ***** : i dont see thaat domain name
Manta : healthbecomesyou.com
Manta : I can bring up the site ... let me ping it for IP
Manta : 216.74.123.43
Manta : maybe.. the account number is in error and not the password.
Manta : we havent accessed helm since the last migration a couple
years ago
Your party has left this session.
Manta :
Manta :
Manta : Hello?????

As you can see I got dumped and was never able to get a hold of anyone again. The sad part is, had I received the information I was requesting I could have simply brought up each of email accounts and hit save, which would have restored them to a working status. I know this because I was able to do it for my own site and 5 of the other sites I administer here. By the way, that whole support session form tart to finish, wasted about 25 minutes of my time and all I got was 2 whole sentences of unhelpful response.

As for updates on the status, there have been no updates to their migration status page since

UPDATE 4/18/06 6:41 PM EASTERN

This is was situation as of 4/20/06 10:00AM PACIFIC TIME

I have tried to call and have been hung up on/cut off twice after lengthy hold times.

I tried to get through to other departments unsuccessfully also.

I just want to conclude this by saying, I experienced great service with 1Plan Host of the past years. In fact I had recommended their service to many of my clients and they had been happy also, BUT, this is not 1Plan Host, and there is no excuse for the blundering that all of us who have/had accounts with 1Plan Host are being subjected to.

This blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the customers of 1Plan Host has cost many businesses a lot. Where once I recommended 1Plan Host, I now have caution and I am wary of this new management Webhost Plus Inc.

I have been a technician, programmer, and IT Administrator for nearly 23 years and have never fouled up a computer system in such a way as to prevent clients from continuing to do business. These new servers should have been fired up offline and thoroughly tested BEFORE the were bought online.

I can't reason why they did things the way they did, and I can only hope they will learn from this reckless action. Had they returned a phone call or email I would have been more than happy to help them with fixing the problems they made for themselves..

In light of 1Plan Host's track record and assuming they have retained at least part of their staff I ask all of you to hold judgement just a while longer and see if things return to the caliber or service we had come to respect and rely on.

However, this has gone on long enough. Webhost Plus you are located in the USA and as such you are liable for damages inflicted upon us. Should we file? That is the question that remains to be seen, but I believe I speak for everyone when I say, "Get on the ball and get this fixed and for heavens sake, KEEP US INFORMED!"

children     games        kids       

live chat

internet radio       

night clubs      VIP host      

gentlemens clubs      

tech support

Another Update to the ongoing 1Plan situation...

As of 4/25/06 1:14pm PST there have been no further update to there so called migration status page since 4/22/06 10:15 PM EASTERN, when they handed out ore rhetoric saying, "We are continuing to make good progress on resolving the remaining migration issues.". Well, I for one can say there has been no noticeable progress to the multiple websites I administer there. In fact as of this morning any attempts to send email out of the 1plan servers results in an "unknown host error". This would suggest they have gone backward with their so-called progress! I submitted another trouble ticket, but apparently the trouble ticket database is corrupt or has errors not too, since I am unable to log on to check the status of the ticket.

They are not taking phone calls in regards to 1plan account problems, they are not available on live chat if you are trying to reach them regarding 1plan problems, in fact it appears to me as if they are flat out ignoring us!

This has gone on long enough! I am urging all account customers to ban together to take affirmative action.

Webhost Plus, if you happen upon this, then I URGE YOU...

Return DNS to the old servers and give us back our sites as they were before your bumbling so-called technicians made a mess of all our lives and left us floundering helpless since April 15th !!

AND THE HITS KEEP COMING!

Well, it's June 2, 2006 and things are still going down at hostplus. The people who bought out 1planhost claiming to be the new and improved future for 1plan customers has, in the face of 6 weeks of disaster, decided to temp fate one more time by performing what they termed "necessary server updates". A few days back I actually breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the worse was behind me. Of the 8 sites I administer at hostplus only minor issues remained. Not the case, when I returned to work today from the holiday weekend, I found that I could no longer log into manta-2000.com to do any web editing, and all of our .php pages were messed up and sporting a brand new error message about an incompatibility with Zend!!!

Let me tell you, am a veteran programmer. I have been designing webs and writing custom applications during most of that time. In my opinion, if these guys are technicians then I am Napoleon!

 

October 8, 2006

Well myself and most of my clients have abandoned 1planhost, cutting our losses and getting our sites back on track. We found a hosting service calles IXWebhosting that seems to fit the bill and has comparable pricing. Another host we found, due to one of my clients having an adult site was floridaserver, although FloridaServer is a bit more expensive. No mater where you choose to rehost you will almost certainly be better off, because from what I have personally experienced as well as what I have read even after evacuating that nightmare, things have gotten worse not better!

 

My personal theory is that some fool with money to invest bought up some web hosting services thinking they would pretty much run themselves. When the migration collapsed he had no clue as to how to repair the damage properly, resulting in months of revenue loss for myself and every other former customer at 1planhosy who got sold down the river without warning!

I think it is time that Carl throw in the towel and hire some REAL experts to repair the damage. In the mean time, if you or someone you know was hosted at 1planhost and would like to see some compensation for these horrific losses then contact me and we will start organizing a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against hostplus charging them with negligence and mishandling of our accounts.

This has gone on long enough, lets ban together and put a stop to this insanity!

 

Both of these servers are well suited to our needs and over the past 3-4 months they seem to be fairly stable. I will post more on them as time goes on, but in the mean time I am writing this to say to everyone who is still floundering on the 1planhost service. RUN!!! Please do not listen to my testimonial there. It was written two years ago when 1planhost was still an excellent choice. That is NOT the case as it is today. In fact it is emerging on web host review sites as one of the worse.

I have asked them repeatedly to remove my testimonial but they have ignored me completely and so I am writing my rebuttal here and on all my other sites as well.