A Customer Service Fail of EPIC Proportions
I’ve been hosting a number of small sites across a number of accounts for a number of years with WebHost4Life. For the most part the service has been what you’d expect out of a low cost hosting company – not great but not that bad.
While things changed. Holy crap what a piece of shit company. They are in the process of migrating all servers to new technology and today one of my accounts was migrated.
I get an email letting me know it’s been completed. I go check out the site nervously. Boom, Error, the connection string for the SQL Server Database is incorrect. I contact Live Chat Support they tell me they have forwarded my request to Technical Support and “Hang Up” on me.
So I hit the Live Chat Button again. They tell me I will need to wait 24-48 hours. Craptastic. Here is the dialog:
Melanie Evans: Hi Lyndon. My name is Melanie, how are you today?
Lyndon Reid: Hi Melanie
Lyndon Reid: My sites were migrated today and are not working
Melanie Evans: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Lyndon Reid: I need this fixed
Lyndon Reid: please
Lyndon Reid: 
Lyndon Reid: Hello?
Melanie Evans: May I place you on hold while I look into this for you? I should have some more information regarding your issue in 4-5 minutes.
Melanie Evans: One of our agents already escalated your issue to our specialists.
Lyndon Reid: He hung up on me so i was unaware
Melanie Evans: Our engineers are working on it.
Lyndon Reid: How long until i can expect a reply
Melanie Evans: It will take 24 – 48 hours to resolve your ticket.
Melanie Evans: I will give the highest priority.
Lyndon Reid: That is really unfair
Lyndon Reid: My entire site is down
Lyndon Reid: Because of something you guys did
Lyndon Reid: and now i have to wait
Lyndon Reid: worse yet you are trying to upsell service packages
Melanie Evans: Yes.
Melanie Evans: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Lyndon Reid: Your serious, I have to wait for up to 2 days?
Lyndon Reid: This will affect my google rankings negatively
Lyndon Reid: This means two days with NO EARNINGS
Melanie Evans: I can understand your concern.
Lyndon Reid: If your company understood my concern they would do something faster
Melanie Evans: I assure that it will be resolved soon.
Lyndon Reid: thank u
End of Conversation
The best part. I go to open a ticket myself. Check out the screen shot. I can pay $30.00 a month for faster service. This is new, since the migration. So they destroy my site and then charge $360 a year for service. What a freakin joke. I wish upon them, with the white hot intensity of a thousand burning sounds, complete and total failure and bankruptcy.
WebHost4Life Sucks
If you are reading them and looking for a host a would recommend stabbing yourself in the left eye with a ballpoint pen before giving this self serving pricks your business.
Love you (no not you WebHost4Life, everyone else that reads my blog).
PS: Isn’t great that I can put a blog post up faster than they can fix a minor issue?
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Unreal. Makes me glad I’m with Host Gator.
I am happy for you and sad for me
.
Hope you are well Chris!
I also got burned by them over the weekend. I got the email saying my site was migrated and it appeared to be working. But upon further inspection, they had toasted all of my custom DNS records so I was losing downloads for a day or so.
I figured no big deal and went to add a custom DNS record in the control panel. As soon as I did that, the entire site went down. I think I connected with 5 different support reps, each one telling me the exact same thing you saw. I was so sick and tired of the automatic line “I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.”.
It took the better part of a day for them to get to my ticket, and the “solution” was to restart IIS.
I then take an even closer look and find that they migrated the schema of my database, but NONE of the data. I chatted with another rep and was told it could take 2 days to get that restored. 2 Days. Are you kidding me?
My contract runs out in November but during my outage I looked around and purchased a VPS account with someone else. I plan on being off of their terrible services long before November gets here.
Absolutely pathetic.
Thanks for commenting. And so Quickly. Sorry to hear you had to go through this as well. You pay monthly with them (just up front) according to their TOS you can request a refund for unused months.
Who did you go with for your VPS?
I’m going with KickAssVps.com. I’m actually kind of glad it happened this weekend, as I was seriously considering using their VPS services for some things I’m going to be rolling out in the near-term. Thankfully they gave me a preview of what is to come and I won’t be locked into another one of their contracts.
As you said above, they have been OK in the past. Not great, but not like this.
Excellent, I will be checking them out as well as RackSpace’s cloud. Thanks for the referral. I’ll bug ya for an affiliate link if I decide to go with them. It’s bad timing for me to make a jump into premium hosting but I guess it needs to be done.
It sucks reading about downtime on a website. Side note: did the correct version of php get loaded? Could php4 be running and you actually use php5?
I use lunarpages.com. Great service. (notice the lack of affiliate link, that’s just how I roll)
good luck!!
Hey Jake,
Thanks for checking in and your concern. It’s actually a Windows server. They didn’t restore the database correctly when migrating servers. Now I wait
It’s clear their customer service sucks, but if you’re able, I would strongly recommend switching to a UNIX-based server when you switch providers.
I developed on Windows for years and assumed that corruption/reboots/hangs were just a part of normal life, until I hosted my web apps on a UNIX server and they just ran… for months.. through OS and libraries upgrades and patches… without any problems or downtime.
I use Windows daily for my laptop and local development, but I would never in 100 years consider deploying a live site on it.
Sorry to hear of your troubles and hope they get it resolved soon!
I have sites on windows servers that NEVER have issues. Must have been your shared environment. Windows CAN be stable.
But yeah there LAMP has its place too. truth be told, I can code quicker in ASP.NET so often I whip things together fast in asp.net.
I’m sorry to hear of your story. You aren’t the only one. See
http://webhost4lifecustomers.ning.com/
for other stories. Join and connect with other users.
Also, I am the webmaster for fishwisepro.com, and it has been unusable for 12 days
(http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2010/03/webhost4life-breaks-fishwisepro-web.html) and has had no data for 3 weeks. I did manage to get their attention enough to get an apology from the company. It’s on my blog. But the problems continue.
3rd day that my site is down: http://www.marblesoftinc.com.
I have 2 accounts with them and both are NOT working. My ASP.NET site hasn’t worked for 3 months. My Linux site is still down. I’ve given up
After you get this macro response to your tickets:
“We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Currently, we are experiencing an issue with our MySQL server. This is the reason you are experiencing the issue. Our engineers are working on the issue and it will be resolved at the earliest. We appreciate your patience during this service interruption. ”
Somehow this does not motivate me to be patient.
After 3 days of downtime and no results, I have none.
$360/yr??? That’s horrible! I would prefer a dedicated server if I need to spend so much to fix problems with them.
Tell me about it :S
The real treat? Ask the tech support specialists where they’re physically located. I’m betting they work out of Mangalore, India.
They’ll be really coy about this, so you have to be direct, otherwise they’ll just give you the address of the U.S. headquarters. But that’s not really where support staff are working. The “please wait 4-5 minutes” line is a tip-off. They all use that exact same line. Several cheapie hosts all funnel their support staff through the same place in India.
I’m not alone, all my sites with webhost4life are down for last 2 days.
Pathetic. It is not even the 1st time either, but 2 days (& still waiting) to fix something in IIS is a joke.
Good luck Vik. I’d try and do anything you can yourself. Such a PITA. They really don’t care.
Chalk me up to another infuriated soon-to-be past customer of WH4L. My clients site went down on Wednesday 4/21 and is still not up. They couldn’t even provide me a functioning A record due to sheer stupidity. Just today, the test link for the migration began to work but of course none of my custom CMS or customer log-in functions work. I’m so mad, I have screamed. My company has a cloudhosting account with Rackspace that I’m moving any leftover WH4L accounts to. They are great with real customer service. It’s not cheap, but I guarantee the same type of issue won’t happen with Rackspace. WH4L has cost me $1000+ in one week due to this situation. Unacceptable.
They don’t care. It’s so sad. They should try hosting some of their own stuff at RackSpace so they can see what support is about.
They haven’t even left a comment on this blog. Look at what RackSpace did when they were mentioned on this blog – http://www.lyndonreid.com/switching-to-mosso-hosting
Hey dude this really, really sucks. I’m curious to know though after this incident whether you did make the move to RackSpace or not? I’ve been considering them for some server space as well. Often it’s the fear of change and migration that sucks until our hand is forced…I guess it does pay to be proactive at some things.
yes,webhost4life sucks. I agree with you!
Yes, this migration has been a complete and utter disaster. My pet peeve was what they did to the webmail. The used to be the clean, simple Smartermail which many advanced features as well as logical features like users being to change their own email passwords. Additionally, when logging into webmail, you didn’t even need to enter the domain part of your email address because your Smartermail service was yours and yours only.
Now the punks have branded the webmail with “Webhost4life” in 20 different pages and users have to email me to change their passwords. And then there’s the idiotic line it seems everyone gets every time: “I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.”
I had two separate accounts with them and have already closed off one. The next is gonna happen soon!
Anthony Chamy vs. Herman
Anthony Chamy: my website is down
Anthony Chamy: again!
Anthony Chamy: Can you please put it back up immediately?
Herman Ray: Hi Anthony. I apologize for the wait time. My name is Herman, how are you today?
Herman Ray: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Anthony Chamy: It has been down due to a connection to the datebase failure
Anthony Chamy: http://www.kepri.co
Anthony Chamy: http://www.kepri.com
Herman Ray: May I place you on hold while I look into this for you? I should have some more information regarding your issue in 4-5 minutes.
Anthony Chamy: Error message is: Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: User kepri already has more than ‘max_user_connections’ active connections in \\boswinfs04\home\users\web\b2091\whl.kepri2\connect.php on line 23 Connection to DB failed
Anthony Chamy: please do so
Anthony Chamy: i am missing traffic that is crucial to my business
Anthony Chamy: and I am losing money
Anthony Chamy: …
Herman Ray: Thank you for your patience. I am still looking into your issue. Can you please hold for another 2 to 3 minutes?
Anthony Chamy: yes please go ahead.
Herman Ray: I appreciate your patience. I am researching on the issue but I will return in 4-5 minutes with some more information.
Anthony Chamy: that’s fine.
Herman Ray: Thank you for your patience. I will be back with some more information in 4 to 5 minutes.
Herman Ray: Thank you for your patience. I am still looking into your issue. Can you please hold for another 2 to 3 minutes?
Anthony Chamy: I think you are taking more time to write these generic messages than time to fix the problem…
Herman Ray: I appreciate your patience. I am researching on the issue but I will return in 4-5 minutes with some more information.
Anthony Chamy: Can you please stop repeating that? thank you
Herman Ray: Thank you for your patience. I will be back with some more information in 4 to 5 minutes.
Anthony Chamy: Herman, you have said this 5 times now, may you please discontinue repeating the same message?
Herman Ray: Thank you for holding.
Herman Ray: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Herman Ray: Could you please check the website again?
Anthony Chamy: the website is running now!
Anthony Chamy: canyou tell me what went wrong?
Herman Ray: We allow 10 concurrent connections to the MySQL servers. You have exceeded this limit. However, we have reset it from the backend.
Anthony Chamy: Can you explain to me why I did not have this problem before the migration?
Herman Ray: Unfortunately, I cannot comment on this. I hope you will not experience any such issue in future.
Anthony Chamy: I spoke to your colleague 2 days ago
Anthony Chamy: and they told me that they increased my quota
Anthony Chamy: ABOVE 10 concurrent connections
Anthony Chamy: so the fact that you said we went over 10 means he did NOT change my quota?
Herman Ray: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Man these guys… what clowns. I’ve been with them since early 2006. It was never great but it was ok and it was cheap (for IIS hosting).
But now, after this so-called migration, it’s all gone to hell.
Two websites both down for TEN DAYS! TEN FREAKIN DAYS!!! And STILL not fixed.
I used to recommend these bozos to others that wanted low cost IIS hosting. Every single one of them has been down anywhere from one to many days after this migration.
And the best part; they timed the migration on all of those accounts for just after the plans came up for renewal.
This is THE WORST experience I’ve had with a hosting company, ever.
Please, pretty pretty please:
– take your business elsewhere
– tell everybody to post everywhere about these idiots so they don’t fall prey
I sincerely hope they go bust. It would be a service to humanity.
I have had the same headache. My sites are down and their customer service people either suck or can’t help me anyway. I say ‘either’ coz i did manage to get reasonable customer service from Tim (supervisor @ Pheonix, AZ call centre) in the sense that he was polite and, well, not a moron like the other 1st level plebs (yes, if you’re reading this i’m talking about you!). But he still couldn’t do anything. He’s like IM’ing the “techs” trying to get some help! what tha?
I have ASP.NET MVC sites and while they’re a little more complex than regular ASP.NET sites, the old english-as-a-second-language Tech Support staff (helpdesk.webhost4life.com) managed to help me out no problems prior to this “migration” crap.
In this migration phase i have:
- lost data in my website’s MSSQL DB’s (they “migrated” old copies of my DBs instead of the latest version at time of migration). Currently “waiting” to get a proper backup restored.
- lost iis script mapping for a number of sites/paths (MVC specific issue). Not resolved yet
- lost a ton of functionality from going from the web-based SmarterMail email client to the SquirrelMail client including: lost inbox messages except for last month (idiots!); end users can’t change their own passwords; lost the Global Address List; lost mailbox signatures; aliases/forward groups all screwed up (members of forwarding groups missing etc..); generally the SquirrelMail client is crap in comparison to the SmarterMail one and the admin features are much worse too. I run a school so i have a lot of mailboxes.
- had one of my MSSQL db passwords changed so suddenly i (/my app) can’t access that DB
- come to the realisation that i need to move to another company but live in fear that transferring my domains might be next to impossible (forget about the huge downtime)
OH MY GAWD.. don’t ever ever ever use this company… i’ve lost so much money.. have four sites… i had never had problems with them til now.. i think they have dug a hole so deep they can’t get out. They bullsh*& their way out of every situation like we are all a bunch of idiots. Spout programming crap and my husband is a software tester and pt programmer.. WTH?? really.. STAY as far away as you can.. unless it’s to let others know how crappy they treat people. Pass the word along. They did offer to refund me 22 dollars.. REALLY hahahha what a joke.. specially since i lost mega $$$ and had to compesate my customers.. UGHH
Well, I am joining the ranks of customers that have been majorly screwed over by Webhost4Life.
I have two accounts with them (a windows and a unix platform) and they have destroyed all my sites.
My ASP.NET site is still broken since March. They updated the ticket and said it was fixed, I sign in and try to login and it’s broken.
As of this writing, my main website is still not up and they don’t even have a clue that it’s down. I had a demo website on a subdomain for a paying client that I updated content for 4 hours and they restored it to the state PRIOR to all my work, wiping out all my changes.
And they write, sorry for the inconvenience. WOW. How about sorry for really messing up your livelihood?
I’m going throu similar problems, i want to know how to begin a legal proccess agaist webhost4life. because the causeme serius lost.
Do NOT use Webhost4life. These guys used to be pretty good now they absolutely suck. They made some sort of migration and they totally botched it. DO NOT USE WEB HOST 4 LIFE.
I cant agree with you more, this company use to be pretty good, but after the migration my site went down too. They uninstalled a PHP module I was using, in my site. It took them 2 WEEKS!!! to uncomment a single line of an ini file and get my site back up.
Then, they stop supporting all the features I used in my website. I had stored all of my Database calls as stored procedures and used a remote client to update and add to them. Next thing I know, I can not connect to the DB remotely anymore (apparently that is not supported now) so I log on using phpMyAdmin and that’s when I notice all the stored are no longer visible. I contact them and the tell me that feature is no longer supported… well uh great, so what do I do now? They have no anwser for that, but they wanted to let me know that my account need to be renewed in the next month and did I want to go ahead and take of that… hmmm, I dont think so.
But here I am, trying to get an updated backup of my DB, which now I cant do because I can not get access to the stored procedures. So looks like the 100 or so procedures I wrote are long gone and I will have to redo them. For some reason, they can not figure out how to perform a backup of a database.
I can not believe how horrible there service has been after the migration.