years and for the most part the web hosts I used have been good and
reliable but recently I came across one that is so poorly run and
supported I wanted to warn people.
I paid for a virtual server account with ipower on October 2004.
From day one I had problems with it (no account information was
intially sent). After a call and several emails I finally got account
information sent with a username and password, but it took several more
emails for ipower to send a correct username and password. I then
spent the next 6 weeks (and over 20 emails to their "tech support")
trying to FTP a single index page to the top level directory of my
webspace (Note: I am not a newbie and have created over ten websites
and FTPed to five different hosts over the last 10 years). At one
point I was told "I'm sorry, but we do not give instruction for
virtual and dedicated servers. They are completely unmanaged by us
other than the hardware and operating system. In order to use these
servers, you will need to know or learn how to configure, run, and
manage on your own." I finally gave up and several weeks ago
requested a full refund. The first billing department person I spoke
to said I would get a full refund. One month later I checked my credit
card and found no refund.
I called their billing again last week and was told that even though
I had never been able to get FTP access to my web host space in over 2
months of trying, because I requested the refund past the initial 30
day I would be denied. So basically I paid about $60 for a hosted
space I could never access.
If you are looking for a host for your website and need to do something
like upload a webpage to your hosted space, I would not recommend
ipower.
I was considering posting the 48 emails I had back and forth with them,
to emphasis the utterly absurd service they "provide" but the document
takes up over 80 pages of text (email me if you want it).
Sincerely,
Mark W
