A friend of mine recently asked for some help/advice on what they should do because they were getting screwed by their web hosting company. And yes, they had cheap web hosting. We should all know that the cheaper the cost, the cheaper the quality, right? Well, this example just proves that theory once again. Luckily, I’m hosted with Lunarpages 
My friend decided to go through a cheap hosting company, one that I have never heard of before. Matter of fact, I think he’s been with them for a few months now as they currently host two of his sites.
Of course, just recently the hosting company decided to suspend his account for having an “open relay” which is apparently against their TOS.
If you have any idea on what that means, please do let me know.
But my friend essentially has not changed anything to his hosting. I mean, he is only hosting two Wordpress blogs on there, how suspicious can that be?
Anyways, he let me read his entire conversation with their customer service and to sum it up, they were not helpful or friendly at all.
First, they did not explain properly what an “open relay” was besides the fact that it was against their TOS. They would not let him access his own files to even transfer off their servers. They said they were going to help get this situation corrected but after two days they still have yet to do anything.
If you’re an online entrepreneur, you know each day and each hour you’re unable to access your sites means you’re losing money. Of course, my friend tried to explain that to them and was asking what they would do about the situation or if there was going to be any reimbursements at all.
Guess what they said? They had the nerve to reply back saying that a day or two is not going to hurt him drastically with their revenue and they “know how advertising works.”
I don’t know about you guys, but I got pissed off myself when I read that part. And trust me, if you had the opportunity to read the entire transcript of their conversation, you’d be even more pissed.
But my friend did some research and found out that this situation has happened to others before. Matter of fact, he showed me some review sites of the hosting with people commenting saying they steal people’s site files! I read the comments as well and let’s say most of them were horrible reviews, especially about their customer support.
At this point, I honestly didn’t know what to tell my friend besides the fact that he probably shouldn’t have gone with a cheap web hosting company. If you do, you’re going to get what you paid for.
And that goes with anything, if you decide that you want to save an extra two dollars to get your money’s worth, well, in the long run you’re going to pay a lot more than what you bargained for.
Lessoned learned! Now go sign up with Lunarpages instead!
Unless your friend had a dedicated server, which I doubt, how would he have setup an open relay? Sounds to me like the company is trying to cover up its own incompetence in setting up servers that are open relays to begin with.
Hi Jay, hmmm I wonder who this friend of yours may be.
What an unlucky guy.
Thats bad service. Care to name and shame?
I’m with Godaddy and had no problems whatsoever. The odd time I’ve emailed them over a query I’ve had a response back within an hour or so. They arnt too expensive either.
This is not always correct. Any hosting company could screw you over at any time. Whether it’s a cheap one or a expensive one, you still risk everything when you host with other companies. I have seen tons of people have problems with Hostgator and GoDaddy because they’re so big, they could get away with stuff. Not sure about LunarPages, but there may be problems too. It’s just I never see people really mention they host with LunarPages, but I think I read somewhere that Hostgator uses LunarPages, so I guess Lunar may be much better.
Best solution is host yourself at home
-Mike
I just dont get why sometimes people opt to take hosting from “unknown” hosting companies…
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@Mike – I agree with you, even big companies like HostGator can easily screw you over. But I would still feel safer having my site hosted with a company that has a good reputation than with one fresh to the Net.
-Rajaie
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Melvin – it’s a very common issue, especially among newbies on a real low or no budget.
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Choosing a web hosting location is clearly very important. In the evolution of our online webiste at http://www.divesports.com , we began with a hosting company that simply didn’t communicate with customers. They would even have planned downtime that wasn’t even announced! We also ran into the same thing with our http://www.divesportsblog.com . While we still use a “cheap” hosting company for this blog, we learned that all cheap hosting companies are not alike. Anyway, thanks for your posts. I love reading them.
Phil Ellis
Cheaper the cost doesn’t ALWAYS mean cheaper quality, but I agree, it’s a good general rule of thumb.
That’s a sobering story about your buddy…….hope he’s moved to another company and is up and running.
I had the same problem with someone who came to me for help. The person who created his site put it up on a cheap web host, but it was a host without a customer service company you could call, and email was bouncing half the time. Still, by going through two larger companies, in this case GoDaddy for the domain name then 1&1 for hosting, we were able to get him moved, although it took two weeks of ugliness.
Folks, never, and I mean NEVER, buy anything from someone that doesn’t offer phone support in some fashion.
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I have had problems with cheap host before aswell, makes a bit worried because a couple of my sites are still hosted with some.
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I would feel safer having my site hosted with a company with a good reputation than with the new one. I have done this mistake before, I choose local company, and they messed up my site
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Cheap hosting = cheap quality.
It’s as simple as that (95% of the time).
i agree cheap host provide very poor up-time ! Hostgator, Bluehost,Dreamhost are few great !!
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100% agree with Sly :
Cheap hosting = cheap quality + bad quality
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I actually read a story yesterday about this guy who had a website that had too much traffic. At the end the hosting service actually over charged him for the resources that his website was using up. I think it was a few hundred bucks.
I just dont get why sometimes people opt to take hosting from “unknown” hosting companies…
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Hi Jay, hmmm I wonder who this friend of yours may be.
What an unlucky guy.
I have experience in hosting in not cheap web hosting company , but i have the same problem , when we try to quit from them , they makes us difficult and getting screwed around. so at the end we have to keep hosting with them. so is not guarantee the the big web hosting is safe. thanks you Kery
Lunarpages is a great webhosting. Some of our website hosted there.
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