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Date Submitted :
February 17th, 2008
Length of time hosted by this company :
1 - 6 months
Overall Rating :
2 out of 5
Reliability :
2 out of 5
Support :
3 out of 5
Pricing :
5 out of 5
Verdict :
My site hosted with hostony has been down several times. PHP keeps giving errors and even though I suggested to them the solution - which i found by browsing on the net - they just shrugged it. My PHP applications are working on and off - I never know if they are working and I have to keep checking on them. Now the cherry on the cake - I received an email from netnanny which i suppose is installed on their servers telling me that a file i have will be delted as routine cleanup because it has not been accessed for a while! Did anyone state that there was a limit of how long a file is kept on the server without being accessed? This is a total rip-off!
I'd had a shared hosting package with them before and it seemed fine for the last 2 years, maybe because I don't do much with it. I thought I'd get a VPS account with them for my new company, worst VPS provider ever.
It took 3 weeks for them to get it running correctly. It's never working, I contact support they reboot it or something, and it comes back for a little bit then eventually dies. They say it's because we;re using too many resources, I said 'we haven't even installed anything because it's never been running'. They say ' we should upgrade to a higher package', I say 'Why offer a package that doesn't work?'
They are a total disaster. One day after the support 'reboot' the box actually came back with linux on it instead of win2003. Now that's quality!
WHen I started with them they had great support. You could even get them on the phone. Their support now is horrible now. They just don't seem to give a crap if your server is up or not. They don't know how to fix many problems and are extremely slow. Their support people are in Russia and are very rude and incompetent. I had to move to another host becasue the could not fix a problem with email. It just stopped working and could not figure out what to do. The only way I could fix it was to go to another hosting company. I heard stories that you can't get your domain from them if you let them register it. I was fortunate not to let them register any of my domains and could transfer DNS easily. Stay far away.
Hostony has great prices but they blow as a web hosting company. They have no phone support what so ever and will not call if a matter is urgent.
They have an online help system that often goes unanswered. They also have a trouble ticketing system that their tech's don't bother to read and just reply with a cut/paste answer. The answer sometimes has absolutly nothing to do with the question asked. I am left wondering if these guys are fluent in english.
The downtime is really bad. There was one occasion where is was left without a site for 5 days straight. Again no help from support, except when it was back up they gave me a month free hosting.
I was with Hostony for 2 years. Not being terribly experienced with Web Hosting, I was satisfied with the service. Approx 1 year ago, the alias mail server for the account appeared to have issues resolving email. I sent 4 tickets for support and after 2 WEEKS there still was no resolution. I was compelled to investigate myself and found my alias domain was suspended without notification and in error ! EMail was completely purged and I lost critical data for myself and many others. There is currently NO phone support or contact, as you must use the "Ticket System" for all contact with this company. The company "Hostony" from my many many contacts appears to be 4 individuals - Serge the owner (who NEVER returns any contact), Alex & Vadim, very limited English, basic Help Desk skills who seem to only work during 10pm to 4am (Europe) but who could possibly find the "any" key if it was in fact valid,and if it was during their scheduled 6 hours shift and Ann - the Billing/Account rep who DOES speak English, but has trouble with rudimentary accounting/billing & common sense. I was suspended in error (having already pre-paid a full year weeks before), but received NO assistance resolving this issue. I was so frustrated I ate the cost of hosting with Hostony for the 49 weeks left of the year,(+30.00 for releasing the ransomed domain) and went to IXWeb Hosting, a completely reliable, less expensive, 99.999% up with real people, live chat, several contact #'s 24/7, and in the USA. My brother experienced similar issues also, and is now happily with IX Web. DONT HOST with Hostony ... BTW they sent me a bill for domains they no longer own last week and I couldn't help but laugh ... God Bless Ann, she's still counting down to the millenium ...`
Hostony is kindof a joke as a hosting company. Before I really understood hosting, I looked at what they were offering, plenty of disk space, good bandwidth, 10 domains, lots of e-mail addresses.
Since then I've learned a lot about hosting. Not because I wanted to. But because Hostony has been so completely incompetent as a hosting company that I've had to figure out ways to trump their incompetence, and several times, I was no able to do so.
Their policies include:
* massive downtime with no warning or explanation (by massive, i mean by 3 days)
* poor customer support. they answer most tickets with incomplete information
* slow servers - i actually purchased multiple server testing services to measure Hostony's performance and downtime. they report DAILY that the server experiences time when it cannot be reached and regular downtime for the server.
I consider myself a patient person, but my patience has been tested. I've tried working with Hostony because I thought maybe they were a company with my best interests at heart and that the reason they were having these problems was because they were trying to improve my service. But after having consistent problems for over 2 years, I must warn new potential customers AGAINST going with Hostony.
I have another account with Hostgator, based on reviews that I've read on web hosting jury. Now although their service has had a couple small glitches as well, it turns out most of them have been my fault, and their customer service is much better and they answer your questions more completely, which helps you get back up and running much quicker.
These reviews about hostony are garbage! I almost want to believe it's simply their competition talking trash about them!
I've been with them over several accounts, since 2004.
I found them somehow, and they have by far the best services and prices for what's offered. I don't know how they make any money.
The day I sent my request to have my page setup, the server was up and running, and the URL was working within 12 hours. They have ICQ support, and there's ALWAYS someone online, at all times and reponds VERY VERY quickly.
Never a problem with the FTP, never a problem with anythign at all over this whole period of time, and I recommend this service to everyone. I also have accounts on DreamHost which I find to be second best, and they have way more issues than hostony ever has.
I would recommend this place, even if their prices went up 50%.
Even on ICQ, whenever I have issues with anythign else IT I icq their "Support" contact and they help me resolve those issues as well.
I've been with hostony for over 2 years now and I must be crazy. I've finally had it. My site is continually down, they moved my site to a new server and then half my site disappeared. It's been down more since the move than before, it feels, though at least I seem to be getting my emails through now. I'm a photographer and have clients relying on me to post their images online for their viewing and I'm constantly getting confused emails asking why they can't get to them. It's making me look incompetent. Of course, they never let you know when things are down so I have no idea until a client starts complaining to me. It's a shame as they look great on paper and when they're working well they're great. They just don't work well all that often.
We have 5 credit cards on file with Hostony to pay for our hosting fees, yet our hosing account has been suspended for more than 48 hrs for non-payment...? Hostony apparently tried charging one card, received an error, and shut our whole account down!
We asked our other credit card companies if Hostony had even attempted to charge BEFORE they suspended our account and they all said no.
They also have my domain hyjacked, and won't give it to me.
No one from billing is responding to our many support tickets. Nothing but hastles... read full details here:
http://hostony-com.85m.info
We log a severe complain on Hostony's Poor Hosting Services Provided to us.
FYI, From 24.11.2005 to 25.12.2005 we have sent 10 tickets about hostony's web and mail server down. Because of hostony's bad service all our customers started screwed us day by day.
As we kept complaining, at last your support team decided to move our a/c to a new better server, and on 22.12.2005 hostony support moved our a/c to the new server. On 23.12.2005 we contacts your support team to transfer our 3 mysql databases (lovelymatrimony, outlookplugins, lovelycards) to the new server. To our regret on same day Mr.Vadim Gusar told that he is unable to find our databases. We requested your support every day to find our database. But on 27.12.2004 Mr.Alexander Nesterov they don’t have our database.
FYI, all the 3 database are vital and 1.5 years, and we have lost the database because of Hostony's Support department's poor directions. IMPORTANT...PLEASE READ CAREFULLY ---> (request key: e143daef7ccc) On 22.12.2005, Mr.Sergey Rusakov transferred our domains to a new server. On same day 22.12.2005, Mr.Vadim Gusar inform us that "if you need to do something on your old server please do it in 5 days because after this time your account there will be terminated". On 23.12.2005 we requested to transfer our 3 database to the new server, On same day (23.12.2005) Mr.Vadim Gusar told us that they are unable to find our database in the old server. The issue is Hostony gave us 5 days time to move our old files & database from old server. But on 2nd days itself our database are removed from the server, before we tried to backup. This is a clear proof that hostony has made a blunder mistake and hostony is responsible for our data loss and mental stress.
We have lost major business due to hostony's bad services.
Now, We have decided to move our server from hostony to a better server in cost of our lost database, mental stress. Never say yes seeing their price tag!
CAN YOU BUY A MOTOR CYCLE @ THE COST OF BICYCLE? I bought and I Burnt my ass!
Hostony is the worst web hosting company I have worked with. I have attempted several times to get answers as to why outtages were taking place. Every time I would report an outtage I would receive a message back saying "It's ok now". This is worthless if you have to report back to a customer that requires uptime.
After MANY outtages I had no choice but to go to a new hosting company who not only is cheaper and provides more product but has had no major outtage in months. I have kept both accounts active for 2 months because hostony.com won't release my domain name even though they claim that they will provide it to you for a small fee.
Now for the real fun I find out that even though my account has always been paid up and on time my re-seller account has been suspended and I can't access my email.
This has caused my business to suffer and I strongly recommend to EVERYONE who reads this to NEVER do business with hostony.com. They are not worth the pains.
I am from India, I opted Hostony mainly because of facinating price. now i am facing big problem with their cheap rated service.
Last 3 months i did not sleep peacefully, because their email server is down almost 3 days a week. all my customer screwed me every day and lost some of them as well.
last 3 months they practiced to down the server at USA night time, which means hostony server is down in the morning hours in India. All my clients screwed me for that too.
I have checked by reverse IP lookup that they have loaded 750 domains in each server that creates lots of problems.
Please don't opt HOSTONY service and you will be happy 2006!!!
[by the way -- on this form, the second rating choice is not labeled; so it's unclear if it's pricing? or feature? or what.] [i'm re-submitting because i think that on the former submission i forgot to change the 'recommend to others' to an unqualified NO!]
NOT recommended.
Hostony has a competitive pricing and options package -- cpanel + fantastico; good amount of disk space for the inexpensive plans; etc. Shell access is permitted on request.
The real problem with hostony is that reliability is abysmal. There are constant problems with downtime. Moreover, even when the site is technically up, response rates can still be incredibly slow -- for mysql queries or even flat file requests.
I've also realized there are real problems -- beyond any social concerns with outsourcing -- with using support service that is not domestic to the client. If there is a real problem, one needs to be able to call in and work with tech support on the phone, in person, in one's native language. Based on the email interactions I've had with Hostony support, that wouldn't work. And while I know the service people try their best, and some of them might be very good, some of them aren't. This is true in any service environment, domestic or foreign. But with domestic service desk, you can call in, talk to someone, and hopefully suss out whether they know what they're talking about, and work until you find the level of expertise you need. With if your tech support is *not* local / domestic, it's not really possible to work with them on that level, because of long-distance phone rates and language barriers. So hostony might work well for clients in whatever nation their tech support people are in, but it's not working so well for this US-based client.
The experience with Hostony has taught me to look not just for a) pricing, b) features/services/options/disk space/etc., but also c) reliability and d) domestic tech support & management.
Hostony has a competitive pricing and options package -- cpanel + fantastico; good amount of disk space for the inexpensive plans; etc. Shell access is permitted on request.
The real problem with hostony is that reliability is abysmal. There are constant problems with downtime. Moreover, even when the site is technically up, response rates can still be incredibly slow -- for mysql queries or even flat file requests.
I've also realized there are real problems -- beyond any social concerns with outsourcing -- with using support service that is not domestic to the client. If there is a real problem, one needs to be able to call in and work with tech support on the phone, in person, in one's native language. Based on the email interactions I've had with Hostony support, that wouldn't work. And while I know the service people try their best, and some of them might be very good, some of them aren't. This is true in any service environment, domestic or foreign. But with domestic service desk, you can call in, talk to someone, and hopefully suss out whether they know what they're talking about, and work until you find the level of expertise you need. With if your tech support is *not* local / domestic, it's not really possible to work with them on that level, because of long-distance phone rates and language barriers. So hostony might work well for clients in whatever nation their tech support people are in, but it's not working so well for this US-based client.
The experience with Hostony has taught me to look not just for a) pricing, b) features/services/options/disk space/etc., but also c) reliability and d) domestic tech support & management.
I havnt been with alot of hosts in the past, but when I came with Hostony, their customer support efforts were of very High Standard,,,
They were always willing to help, and even have special MSN support, and its nearly all the time...
I can negotiate with them, and they always give me more than I expected, and their Price is fantastic. They arent veryyy cheap, but more like good prices, because I get Unlimited Hosted domains...
I dont really think its their polocy, but i always got my answers within an hour or so, thats if answers were with me instantly
I have relised how good they are after moving to another Host, and now im bak
I had 15,000 unique visitors per day; the slow loading times and reidculous downtime of hostony have driven that down to... I don't even know how many, because their servers are down at the moment, and I can't log in to my control panel.
90% uptime. That's it, pure and simple. Over a two month period, "Hostony" (apparently a reseller in Texas who contracts support out to a pool of guys in the Ukraine) has maintained about 90% update: meaning that my website is consistently down 1-2 hrs a day. The reasons they give change daily, but the problem remains.
Hostony is the worst hosting experience I have ever had. Their servers are down for far more than their 99% guarantee, and they don't really care. They've updated the plan for us, but the downtime continued. We have so many hours of downtime to our name, we wondered if they would consider giving us a dedicated server. Instead, we decided we were done - they hadn't honored the contract and we wanted to get a refund for our last 6 months of service and go somewhere else. They offered us a $15 refund for $75 worth of service, we're continuing to push the issue now. After this request, our website was promptly suspended and now I don't have access to anything - the admin panel, the email, anything (And I need the email immediately, my college application depends on it!). The live support is never available and there is no phone number with which to contact them - we rarely get responses and they take forever to get.
Word to the wise, people - I don't care how many people say I'm making a big thing of this. I was in your position once. Hostony is one of the worst providers I have ever worked with, and now I wish I listened to all the whiny people warning me about them. The prices are enticing, but once you've got a $300 contract... you're screwed.
Well this is the end all with Hostony. Yesterday my site went down AGAIN- third time in 5 days. Check their forums- everyone is having this problem. My website mail has not worked for 6 weeks. And yesterday, they told me my site was back up- they had to "recreate it" its not back up- so I told them that and they said I never had a database. They lost my database. It has now been over 24 hours and NOONE will answer emails- Live support has not been live for over a month- if u happen to catch someone on it- they sign out within minutes. Supervisor help- I have sent 3 unanswered emails. I would never recommend them to anyone
Absolutely awful. Not any intent except to take your money and offer no response to numerous emails and live support inquiries for days upon end. When you get someone and press them they hang up. But they take the money.
Technical support - excellent, most issues
handled within 24 hours. No phone number.
Everything via e-mail.
Billing service - poor:
I was a loyal customer for 2 years. I paid by
the quarter. When I tried to change my
credit card number 6 months ago, the
billing organization had many problems.
Finally, I rejected the latest quarterly
charge on my initial credit card and gave
them the new credit card again.
All of a sudden midway into the quarter,
they shut me down without warning indicating
that I did not pay the bill. It took 2 days of
e-mails to try to resolve the problem - for
which they said I would have to pay an
extra $35 chargeback fee. I refused and
changed companies. The billing organization
behaves like robots. No phone number also
hurts them.
By the time they agreed to fix the problem
(2 days), I had already changed web hosting
services.
I still have 1 1/2 months of service which I
paid for, and they will not let me back on the
system to check lost e-mails, etc.
There is no customer service with Hostony. If the server is down they do not tell you (my guess is in hopes that you don't notice). If you send a trouble ticket in about a server being down they will not even give a guesstimate on repair timeframe.
Email is routinly down... during which time any email sent to the accounts on the down server simply vanish.
Upon doing some research and reading interactions they have with customers I have come to realize they do not understand customer service. The underlying them with their interactions with customers is that the problem always the customers fault.
These are simply my observations... and in accordance with them I am cancelling my account with them once the server is working again so I can get my data off first.
Please read, ponder and post this message as you might be subjecting your visitors to elaborate fraud when it comes to that company.
We had a number of problems prior to signing. We asked all kinds of questions and monitored the response and response time. We have also noticed that there is no phone number for this company. A person there whom we contacted communicated that 'it is unfortunate miscommunication as their accounts are now being upgraded and this downtime and delay is not usual'.
We paid for our account six months in advance on Feb 3, 2005 but until Feb 6 we haven't received anything from that company - not a confirmation, note - nothing at all. We contacted them and Paypal and demanded resolution. Our account was established and we started to build one publishing site Dancingspot.com using Mambo system and we also transferred our company's website Warrior Group Inc. warriorgroup.ca to that hosting account.
LITTLE DID WE KNOW that:
1. A downtime is 72% daily
2. That when we built DancingSPOT they destroyed our website and to make things worse when we send them warning about this - they erased all we did and installed Mambo on it. We lost all data in the process and had to pay programmer to start from the scratch as database was deleted.
3. In fact now, when the site was rebuilt the third time it is only crushed again and database is down daily and upon reinstating you have to back up the entire database to make the site work.
4. We were contacting those people asking for resolution not to mention how angry we are about the additional costs that their inexperience and unprofessional and unknowledgeable behaviour caused us. They haven't resolved or compensated us for any of the problems they have caused.
5. However TO TOP IT OFF, we got an e-mail today from them that they 'suspended' our account for the lack of payment. The account was paid in advance and Hostony not only just decided to steal our money but also put suspended account due to non-payment on all our domains that were hosted on that account - 5 of them!
6. We asked our lawyer to get in touch with them and he also tried to obtain the names of the owners/phone numbers etc. The only thing you can find out from their site is that they are offshore establishment. We do not know where they actually operate from. There is a whole bunch of Russians who work there.
7. Paypal is putting that account under investigations following the problems we had and we are starting legal action.
8. We have to start building sites from the scratch as the company is not allowing us access to our account.
I would not suggest this company to my worst enemy. Their unprofessionally and what we believe is deliberate fraud is only increased by the bogus rating that you have - which will either make you their accomplice or will make you lose credibility.
I hope you can learn from my experience and from 600+ others who complain about this scam to Paypal and that you will immediately remove their listing from your site and provide your readers with this feedback.
I have been an Internet professional for over 10 years and you can imagine I have seen everything. This company wins solid price in being THE WORST OF THE WEB. BUYERS BEWARE!
Additionally if anybody wants more info and the names and address of the owners they can contact me.
Regards,
Bianca Sykora, Marketing Manager
Warrior Group Inc.
The truth is that customer(Bianca Sykora) has sent us paypal payment
manually and not through our signup or billing interface. Certainly, the
payment was not posted
automatically to his billing account.
Because our billing was not notified about this non-standard payment they
suspended customer's account. A few hours later when they got an explanation
from the customer access to the account was restored.
I understand that customer doesn't care about our internal procedures, but
he made a payment in a custom way and there is no way for our automated
system
to post his payment to the billing.
The time account was suspended is called by the customer as server downtime.
But this is not completely true. Server was up and running all the time.
Only this customer account was suspended.
Also uptime calculated on monthly basis not daily. It is common practice fro
the hosting industry. Basing on this our uptime guarantee was not broken.
Nevertheless, we tried to do all to make this customer happy and upgraded
his account to the Gold for free.
I personally was shocked with his rudest behavior with our female staff.
Everything I can say I would not ever call such person gentleman even taking
into consideration that he takes the issue personally. But we tried to work
through the issue with the customer, despite his rude attitude to our
support
and rude personal comments about our female staff.
At the moment customer decided to cancel. His account was completely
refunded and we also allowed him to download their data before closing his
account.
--
Sincerely,
Serge Ryabchuck
http://www.hostony.com
I was hosted with Hostony for 3 months last year - from June to August. I moved my website from them because of the constant downtime and finally, a server crash. Whilst I can accept server crashes, I have a real problem when this comes on top of endless high server loads that are complained about with no response!
The support at Hostony is patchy at best - but the real problem appears to be the lack of customer care along with unreliable uptime. When sites run, they run fast - but that's not good enough if the site isn't online long enough to appreciate it!
Checking out their support forums pretty much tells the story. A company to keep well away from if people want a reliable host.
When cancelling my site, and to be fair to the company, I did receive my money back. I took them several months however to remove my site from their servers - nothing like a big sign saying Account Suspended which is currently does ... hmm ... I cancelled the account and moved on!
We joined Hostony in April because the features they offered were beyond anything else for the price. Here's the lowdown.
Features are always excellent for the money - when you can even use them. The servers have patches of time where they function at so slow a pace my browsers time out. Often they just go down completely. They don't act on their 99.9% uptime guarantee even if you request someone to look into it. NO ONE is ever around for the Live Chat support venue, and ticket responses are often unhelpful and take eons. Just... Don't go here. Please. You can do better for the money.
